Zurers in Italy: 2005

Day 23: Florence

2005-06-08T16:31:00.000+02:00

We have breakfast in a nice bar just across the street from the Piazza Santa Croce...we are the only non-regulars there--amazing to us since there are so many tourists in Florence now. But of course, most of the visitors eat breakfast at their hotels and not in bars.

We have never been to the Sant'Ambrogio market located in a more residential neighborhood to the north and west of our apartment. The route to this market takes us through very pleasant streets, with schools, neighborhood shops and Florentines going about their business. We pass the Piazza Ciompi, where permanent stalls sell antiques and second hand merchandise of varying quality. There is a book stall that has boxes of old magazines, including many back issues of Bell'Italia, the very glossy Italian travel magazine. The issues are only Euro 1.00 and I am very tempted to buy some, but the thought of adding more weight to our luggage convinces me against buying any. Next time....

The market is just beyond what is becoming Cibreo row.....Cibreo is a high end, very famous Tuscan restaurant that now has a lower cost trattoria, a bar and a food shop in the same block. The outdoor stalls at the market, mostly fruits and vegetables, are overflowing with ripe melons and piles of red cherries. It is hard to resist all the beautiful produce but we settle for some cherries and apricots. Inside, we inspect the meat and cheese displays and buy a couple of bottles of local olive oil to bring back to DC. Walking back to Santa Croce, we discuss perhaps getting an apartment in this neighborhood on our next extended stay in Florence.

I get the car out the garage--the garage attendant has to move about six cars to retrieve our BMW--and we head for Poggio a Caiano (about 20 km west of Florence) to have lunch with our friend, Maddie. We are on the east side of town and have to get to the other end of Florence to leave the city. Since the "centro storico" is largely closed to through traffic, we have to take broad boulevards that skirt the center. These streets are packed with traffic all trying to do the same thing we are but it moves fairly well. There are only a couple of uncertain moments when we have to make quick decisions about which road to take out of the traffic circles, but before too long we have gone past the station and are on the right road. The Florence residential suburbs are quite built up--dense blocks of apartment buildings interspersed with neighborhood shops and bigger shopping malls. Even after we pass the Florence city limits, it is a slow trip with many stop lights and complicated traffic maneuvers.

We pick up Maddie at the travel agency where she works and she proposes that---instead of having lunch in Pistoia--we eat in the nearby hills and then head to Pistoia for a short visit. The mountains start very abruptly in this area and we are very quickly climbing on a steep curvy road. We get a good tour of the hills because a couple of the places that Maddie has in mind are closed during the week (it is still off-season for resort areas). We end up in the restaurant of a small hotel in the town of San Baronto. The dining room is almost empty....there is only one table occupied...but the staff is eating in the kitchen and the grandmother of the family is eating by herself at a corner table. When we sit down, we ask if we can have what the staff is eating, but the waiter informs us that they are having risotto which is not on the menu.

The food is fine and lunch is fun....we have a good time catching up with Maddie and talking about families and the travel business. I have a large and tasty Tuscan antipasto followed by penne with sausage...good but a little greasy. Diana has another spectacular melon with prosciutto and a hearty tortellini dish while Maddie has very good bruschetta with chopped tomatoes and garlic and a tagliatelle served with a very rich meat ragu. We all have the standard but usually very good Italian restaurant dessert...a simple fruit salad (macedonia).

Pistoia is town (like Prato) that exists in the shadow of Florence...very few tourists visit here. But the historical center is very nicely preserved, there is a large cathedral, a hospital with an impressive della Robbia frieze, and several other nice squares and churches. In addition, there is a compact shopping district and Maddie tells us that she is more likely to come to Pistoia to shop than go to Florence. Since we are there between 1 pm and 4 pm, the city is quiet so it is hard to tell what it is really like (we are also there after the big semi-weekly market and there is a good deal of trash being cleaned up) but I suspect it is similar to other Italian cities of a moderate size (Lucca, Mantova, Ferrara). I think it might be a nice alternative as a base to visit this area of Tuscany if someone didn't want to stay either in Florence or in the countryside.

We walk around town for about 45 minutes and stop in at the tourist office and in the Duomo before starting back to Poggio.....we sit in Maddie's office for a while talking and checking e-mail before continuing on to Florence. As we enter the city, I decide to try and drive past the apartment that we stayed in last fall by crossing the "centro storico" instead of taking the long way around the city. This route entails crossing the Arno several times and following the complicated traffic pattern through the narrow streets of the Oltrano. We get very close to our destination but, when faced with the prospect of going down the Borgo San Jacopo that empties out at the Ponte Vecchio, I lose my nerve. Recrossing the Arno, I try and figure out a way to get across the city and the next thing I know, I am driving on the Piazza della Signoria...the large pedestrian square where tourists, horse-drawn carriages and vendors are hanging out. I should have just pushed on across the square but again I lose my nerve and we find ourselves stuck in the pedestrian shopping area for what seems like an hour before I finally get on a main traffic route and reach the garage near the Piazza Santa Croce. One interesting thing...something that I will file away for my next driving adventure in Florence...is that no one--including policemen, shoppers, strollers and vendors--took any notice of us while we were sharing their space in the pedestrian zones.

After our driving adventures, we rest in the apartment until it is time for dinner. We decide to go somewhere close by. While walking, we pass the open door of a pretty little restaurant in the Piazza de' Peruzzi; inside it is lit by candles and looks very inviting. The menu--posted at the door--is a little creative but still appealing so we go in. The unlikely name of the restaurant is the Club Culinario Toscano da Osvaldo and, as we sit down, I am afraid that we have made a mistake. All the tables are occupied by English-speaking diners and the solitary waiter has a very strange affect.

We decide to stay and dinner turns out to be very nice. After some stumbles--it takes a long time for the waiter to take our order (he is the only waiter for all ten tables), we enjoy our evening very much. Diana has some very elegant ravioli stuffed with cheese and spinach and served with a walnut sauce and a tender, tasty tagliata (filet). My very unusual tortelli stuffed with goose and served with a perfect mushroom sauce is delicious as is the "verzini ripieni"--cabbage stuffed with an almost too rich meatball concoction. The waiter disapproves of my wine selection--he asks me if I am familiar with the Tuscan blend I had picked--and switches us to a perfect red from southern Tuscany (Suvereto) called Eliseo. The other thing that makes the evening fun was that we strike up a conversation with the English couple at the next table and really hit it off.....talking together through several courses.

After dinner, tired and slightly drunk, we are happy that we are only a block from our apartment. Tomorrow we will search for some more Last Suppers and then we have lunch with our friend, Jane Nyhan.

Day 22: Lerici-Florence

2005-06-07T05:17:00.000+02:00

NOTE: We are back home now....we arrived in Washington on Friday, June 17. We are now trying to get over our jet lag and catch up with mail, etc. It was a very good trip.
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Reluctantly leaving Lerici, we make a detour to Lucca on the way to Florence.

One mission in Lucca is to buy some of the very delicious hazelnut dark chocolate bark at the chocolate store, Caniparoli. However, I had forgotten that they don't make chocolate in the hot summer months, so we have to make do with some biscotti. We still find Lucca a very pleasant town and would be happy to return for another stay.

We also want to visit our friend Paolo, the owner of the Piccolo Puccini Hotel, with whom we have become friendly, on the internet and during our stays in Lucca. He is in the midst of remodelling a bar in the center of town which he hopes to open in less than a month. He tells us that the bar is a "new challenge" for him and it will cater to the increased influx of British tourists in Lucca. This increase is due to the availability of inexpensive flights from Great Britain and the relative strength of the British economy. We also meet his father and have a discussion about Italian families and the father's desire to have stronger Italian-American ties.

Lunch is at one of our favorite restaurants in Lucca.....Vecchia Trattoria. We sit outside on this very warm day....Diana orders the very memorable fried chicken which comes with equally good fried vegetables (it is still terrific); Diana made this dish for Hanukkah last year after she discovered the recipe in an Italian-Jewish cookbook. I have the zuppa di farro and grilled polenta covered with melted cheese--very simple and very good. The other customers today are a German tour group and two French families with young children. It is nice to be able to return to favorite restaurants and find them as good as you remember.

We are keeping the car for our three days in Florence so we have to navigate right to the Piazza Santa Croce where we are staying; we have been offered a free apartment for three days--a travel agent perk. We approach the center along the riverfront and have no problem reaching the piazza. The problem is that our apartment is right on the piazza which is designated a pedestrian zone. In addition, the access areas on the sides of the piazza are filled with vendors blocking the way to the apartment's front door. We negotiate our way to the front of the church where we are stopped by a policeman who tells me that I am in a pedestrian zone. I try to explain that I am trying to unload luggage at our apartment at which point he leaves us alone. I park, leave Diana with the car and go to the apartment office to see what I should do.

The manager tells me that I am about as close as I am going to get so we roll our bags the half block to the door and wrestle them up the stairs to the first floor apartment (not served by the elevator).

The apartment is amazing....it is in the Palazzo Antellesi, which is the painted building on the south side of of Piazza Santa Croce. Our two bedroom apartment has unbelievably high ceilings (maybe 16 feet) and frescoes on the walls. We also have windows that give us a great view of the piazza.

Before getting too comfortable, I go to retrieve the car and take it to the nearby garage. On my first try, I somehow miss the garage and have to make a wide circle to return to the street....if you miss your destination in an Italian city, it is not a matter of just making a u-turn or going around the block to get back on track. You have to follow the traffic patterns that take you completely out of the center before you can make your way back in.

Once the car is parked, we go out for a walk. We walk down the Via Ghibellina in the direction of Tuscan Artist's shop and after a few blocks, we find it. Angie (an active member of the Slow Travel board) is there and we have a nice talk and admire at the paintings on the walls -Tuscan landscapes and pictures of food- done by both her and her husband. Diana has her eye on a small oil painting of poppies with a purple sky. We agree to stop to see her again in Castellina in Chianti on our way to Siena to see the show of their pictures in the tower of the Town Hall. Saying goodbye, we next stop at a sidewalk cafe at the Piazza della Signoria, like good tourists and have a pre-dinner prosecco while watching all the other tourists troop back and forth across the broad square.

Since we had been in Florence for two weeks last October, we have a nice feeling of familiarity as we walk through the streets on our way back to the apartment. Just before we are ready to go out for dinner, the sky becomes extremely dark and it begins raining very hard. This rainstorm continues for an almost an hour (we learn later that there had been hail in other parts of the city and in Chianti). Here is a picture I took from our window overlooking the piazza.

Finally it lets up and we decide to brave the rain so we can have dinner. The storm seems to have broken the heat wave and it is cool and we need jackets as we go outside. We eat at a local trattoria called dei Fagioli, just a block or two away from the apartment. Dinner is excellent...it is a traditional trattoria and the clientele is a mixture of locals and tourists. The waiter is very professional and we appreciate how he explains the specials in English but then reverts to Italian for the rest of the meal. I have a hearty bowl of ribollita (vegetable soup thickened with bread) and a rich, very tasty plate of tripe, Florentine style. Diana has the house special (named after the waiter's father--Gigi), an involtini preparation filled with prosciutto, artichokes and cheese. We drink a nice Morellino from Scansano, the wine that has become our regular red on this trip. For dessert, Diana has a good piece of cake (torta della nonna) and I have one of the best desserts ever....sliced ripe peaches soaked in lemon and sugar.

When we have finished, the weather is clearing and the streets are again filled with people; even the outdoor restaurants are set up and serving customers. Tomorrow, we will have lunch with our friend and my travel business colleague, Maddie Bacarelli and will visit the neighboring city of Pistoia.

Day 21: Lerici

2005-06-06T21:55:00.000+02:00

Another beautiful morning in Lerici....the water in the Gulf of La Spezia is motionless; the surface looks like a mirror as the sun rises over the hills. After a lazy morning, we drive to the hill town of Fosdinovo, which is in Tuscany but less than 20 kilometers from Lerici. We are going back to a very nice store that sells household linens and is famous for its hand embroidered fabrics. We hope to buy a wedding gift there. The ride up is very windy and slow. We park at the top of town, under the large Malaspina castle that dominates the town. We walk down the main street (barely wider than a normal car) and are quite amazed to see cars and trucks squeezing past us.

Unfortunately, the store is closed but we write down the address of the branch store in Sarzana (closer to Lerici) which will be open tomorrow morning. We decide to drive to Riomaggiore, the westernmost village in the Cinque Terre, for lunch. The road from La Spezia is well maintained and wide and there are some beautiful views after you drive through the long tunnel that gets you into the Cinque Terre. Riomaggiore has built a large pay parking complex at the top of the town which makes parking easy on this Monday afternoon. I am sure that on weekends the garage is packed.

It is a steep walk down to the harbor and, although the town is not particularly crowded, almost all of the tourists we see are Americans. Just as we reach the harbor, an American stops me and says "I know you." It turns out to be an old workforce system colleague, Jim Boyd, who is staying in Riomaggiore with his family. We have a nice reunion (what a small world) and we continue on to have lunch. We have sandwiches and salads at small cafe picturesquely located over the harbor with a perfect view of the Cinque Terre coastline clear down to Monterosso. The area is indeed beautiful and worth a visit, but it is important to figure out how to avoid the peak times when the small villages are overcrowded and the trails have traffic jams. We've done the walks in the past and today are just enjoying the views.

On our way back to the car (a very steep climb), we meet Jim and his family again and I stop for a piece of very good version of farinata (a chickpea flour crepe baked in a pizza oven) which is a specialty of Liguria and the French Riviera. Back in Lerici, we have a drink at a bar on the waterfront....a glass of prosecco in the early evening in Lerici--what a life. We stop at our "friend's" wine store and buy a couple of bottles of Vermentino to take home as well as some olive oil soap that I like very much. We tell him we will see him "la prossima volta" (the next time); he tells us that he is very "gratified" that we come back to see him when we are in Lerici.

We eat dinner at the hotel and get a royal welcome from Claudia, the wife of the hotel manager who runs the dining room. She is always seems very pleased to see us and tells the waitress to take good care of the "regina" (queen) and the "re" (king). Dinner is served on the terrace; we have never been in Lerici when it was warm enough to eat outside at the hotel before. It is quite pleasant to watch the sun go down and see the lights come on around the harbor. Our dinner is very enjoyable.....Diana has a seafood pasta and I have a local version of a vegetable flan baked in a crust (strapazza). We both have the salt baked fish, a branzino; it is very tasty and the only drawback is the presence of a good number of bones. We drink another bottle of Vermentino which goes down very easily.

The next table on the terrace has a large party of men, who are speaking Thai. Diana gets up and introduces herself, explaining in Thai that we had lived in Thailand years ago. It turns out that they are from the Thai navy and are in La Spezia for some exercises. We had actually seen them the night before at the same restaurant where we were eating but had not figured out that they were from Thailand. An interesting coincidence.....we have happily had a high incidence of encounters with Thais on this trip.

It is a short elevator ride to our room.....tomorrow we are off to Florence.

Day 20: Lerici

2005-06-05T18:14:00.000+02:00

A lazy morning.....after a large Doria Park breakfast, we sit on the terrace and relax--reading, writing and watching the Gulf of La Spezia. At around noon, we walk to the castle along the "high" road above the harbor. We then head down into the small bay on the other side of the point where boats are moored and people are swimming--both off the boats and on the small sand beach. As we walk along, I smell something cooking and we discover a beach club below us with a restaurant that has a terrace overlooking the bay. This is too serendipitous to pass up, so we decide to have lunch.

That the food was good is a bonus.....our table is right on the railing...in partial shade...and we have a great vantage point to watch all the goings on while we eat. There are several large groups eating at the restaurant.....one of them having been ferried in on a small rowboat from one of the sailboats moored in the harbor. My mussels are terrific, served in a wine broth with a heavy lemony accent (there are small pieces of lemon floating in the broth). Diana has a good pasta with pesto and a very nice traditional local cake....torta della nonna (grandmother's cake)...which it frequently very good in Liguria. After a half liter of wine, we walk back to the hotel the easier way--through the tunnel that leads to the fishing port.

More rest in the afternoon--after all, this is our "vacation from our vacation".

We go back down the hill around 6:30 pm for a pre-dinner gelato and to watch the last of the late Sunday afternoon "passeggiata" along the waterfront. We look on with amusement as one member of a family group of more than twenty people tries to organize them for dinner and meets resistance from all fronts. They finally head off to a restaurant that serves both pizza and gelato...which seems to satisfy most of the party.

We have dinner at En Tragia, one of the few restaurants without outside tables; it was recommended to us by a local American who lives in a town near Lerici, where she organizes private tours for small groups The place is very crowded and there are several large English speaking family groups, who appear to be regulars at the restaurant. We enjoy our dinner although the noise from the large parties is a bit disconcerting. Diana has marinated alici (anchovies) and a big heap of fried shrimp which are good. My spaghetti alle vongole is excellent, lots of very (non-traditionally) meaty clams, and my fritto misto is okay. We drink a very nice local whiite wine made from a grape called Vermentino--light, fresh and it goes down easy. The waiter is very pleasant...he keeps telling us (in English) that he doesn't speak English. He does explain to us that the name of the restaurant come from the word in the local dialect for "pebbles". He tells us that in the old days the beach came right up to the door of the restaurant and there was a pebbly beach right in front--therefore the name.

After dinner, we sit in the new piazza and listen to some street musicians entertain the people eating in the outdoor restaurants and then we climb the hill to the hotel. Tomorrow we will visit the Hotel Europa, a nearby hotel that the Doria Park has purchased and plans to renovate. After that, we may do some shopping.

P.S. from Diana: On this trip, during the mini-vacation in Lerici, and while Jim works, writes these reports, and sleeps I have read and enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Hadden; Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard; The Life of Pi by Yann Martel; The Known World by Edward P. Jones; Pretty Birds by Scott Simon; From Liguria With Love: Capture, Imprisonment and Escape in Wartime Italy by Michael Ross; Iris Origo: Marchesa of Val D'Orcia by Caroline Moorehead; Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop by Joseph Lelyveld; Pagan Holiday: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists by Tony Perrottet; The Liberated Bride by A. B. Yehoshua. Not a dud in the lot and a few, like the Jones and Yehoshua novels, truly outstanding. I'm writing this in Rome, with 3 days and a plane trip and two books left. I should be OK. Jim is now taking a nap - an uncommon occurance - and so although I do proof-read and edit his reports, I'm now getting some prolonged computer time myself. This has been a wonderful trip, as usual. What a life- to be able to get away for so long, have such a loving, knowledgable and enthusiatic companion and guide, and be in this endlessly fascinating, beautiful country. Is there any place so varied, so rich in history and art and so physically beautiful -and in such a relatively small space? Not to mention the people, food and wine. There is an attitude toward life that seems well worth emulating. Easier to do on vacation and without one's daily responsibilities. Poor Jim had too much work to do on this trip - but that also makes these trips possible. I hope all is going well with all of you, back in the "real world" and thanks for following along on our journey.

Day 19: Trento-Lerici

2005-06-04T20:22:00.000+02:00

We say goodbye to Trento....we found it a very congenial town--pleasant to walk around and well located for day trips. However, in general, the food was not a highlight. The trip to Lerici is almost all on "autostrade"--south through the hills above Lago di Garda, past Verona and Mantova to Modena, then west to Parma and southwest to La Spezia--about three and a half hours in normal traffic. There appears to be some kind of backup on the autostrada between Modena and Reggio di Emilia so--on a hunch, I get off and take the regular highway to Reggio. It is slow, but when we get back on the autostrada we notice that the traffic is backed up until just before we enter...so we may have made a good choice and saved some time.

We leave the autostrada in Fornovo di Taro, a small dusty town in Emilia-Romagna, to have some lunch; the possibilities look a little thin, but we stop at a nondescript bar (from the outside) which is at the bus stop in the middle of town. Inside it is quite pleasant...we order sandwiches and we are invited to sit at one of the outside tables while the sandwiches are being made. In fact, the sandwiches--prosciutto and mozzarella cheese on good bread (we have had mediocre bread since we left Orvieto)--are great. We are struck by the care and flair of the place when we are waiting to pay. The proprietor is making some drinks for some locals and carefully cracking ice cubes one by one by holding them in his hand and hitting them with a mallet before putting the cracked ice in the glasses. Obviously, he takes a lot of pride in his business.

We are happy to be back in Lerici, one of our favorite places in Italy. We plan on taking it easy for the next three days, sitting on our terrace and walking around town. This will be our vacation from our vacation. We check into the Doria Park and check out the view from our top floor room.....beautiful as always. The town lies below us, with its newly redone piazza, the castle, the harbor filled with boats, and the Gulf of La Spezia- beautiful. After a rest, we head down to the town and take our usual stroll to the rock jetty at the end of the fishing port. Today being a very warm Saturday, the rocks are crowded with sunbathers who are working on their tans (some exposing more area than others.) After stopping for a gelato, we visit the proprietor of the wine store in Lerici; we have stop to see him every time we are in Lerici and have very interesting conversations about politics and the state of the world. He enjoys the chance to use his English and also likes the opportunity to expound his conservative political views.

For dinner tonight, we are going out with Luigi Pini (the desk clerk at the Doria Park with whom we have become friendly ) and his wife Shona. He is taking us to a trattoria in the hills above La Spezia that is owned by good friends of his; he sometimes goes in to work on a Saturday night when they expect to have large parties. The specialty of theTrattoria DiMeo is asado....marinated beef in the Argentine style. Apparently, some people from a neighboring town emigrated to Argentina in the early 20th century and later moved back to Italy. When they came back, they brought a taste for asado and this trattoria is known for the dish.

After a stop at their apartment and a brief visit with their son, we head up to the restaurant. The staff is extremely welcoming to us all and they are obviously very fond of Luigi and Shona....there is lots of joking and hugs as we arrive. The whole evening is very enjoyable and the food is also terrific--plates of salumi served with sgabei (deep fried dough not unlike an unsweetened Chinese doughnut), large portions of asado served with chimichuri sauce as well as roasted potatoes, roasted peppers and fresh tomatoes and onions. This feast is followed by a nice sized bistecca fiorentina, which was very much appreciated by the steak lovers at the table. The house red wine went down very easily and the sgroppino (a spiked liquidy lemon sorbet) was very refreshing. A very lovely evening....

Luckily Luigi is driving and he negotiates the winding road back to Lerici with ease. The late night view from our terrace with the lights shining around the harbor is magical. Tomorrow we plan to do as little as possible.

Day 18: Trento

2005-06-03T02:08:00.000+02:00

The drive south from Trento on the autostrada is still quite dramatic, with high mountains on either side of the road. The approach to Lago di Garda is striking....the lake appears suddenly as you round a curve. The lake is more dramatic at its north end which is in the region of Trentino-Alto Adige. Sheer cliffs line the lake shore and the villages are set into indentations in the cliff face. The lake is filled with what appear to be small sailboats but as you get closer you see that the sails are windsurfers. The mountain passes from the north act as a wind tunnel and make this area the best in Italy for such activities.

Riva del Garda is an older, established resort at the end of the lake. The lake front is nicely developed with parks and beaches and the centro storico ends right at the pretty small harbor. We stroll around the beach area for a while and then stop for a coffee. The waiter, who had told us about his cousin who lives in Chicago, tries to shortchange us but we catch him; he tries to give change for Euro 5 instead of the Euro 20 bill I gave him. Continuing on, we come to the much larger and very picturesque main harbor with a broad piazza and more cafes.

The centro storico of Riva is a normal small town center with the usual shops, cafes, and services....once you are away from the waterfront, it is hard to tell that you are in a resort town. We buy some local cherries at a "frutta verdura"...and they are pretty good; we finish our tour of the town while finishing the cherries. We make a quick stop at one of the four star hotels on the lake to look up a friend of a friend named Davide, but it turns out that he no longer works there. But we take a break as we explore the nice (and very nicely air-conditioned) lobby.

We plan to take the cable car that goes from the lakefront town of Malcesine (about 15 km south, across the Veneto border) to the top of the mountain that dominates the town. The ride down the east side of the lake takes us past many more windsurfers....very colorful as they zip up and down at fast speeds. We stop for lunch in town before making the ascent. The restaurant at the Hotel Malcesine has a great terrace right on the water and we have a pleasant lunch--a large salad for Diana and grilled trout and spinach for me--while watching the ferries land and depart and enjoying the lake breeze on this hot day.

The cable car (funivia) that takes people (tourists, hikers, paragliders, skiiers in the winter and strollers like us) to the top of Monte Baldo (about 3300 feet) in 15 minutes does it in two sections; you have to change cars in the middle. The car never gets too far above the ground but the views as you ascend and the lake gets further and further away are quite grand. Today is a bit overcast, but on a clear day, the Alps and Dolomites can be seen during the ascent. We see paragliders hovering above us and I am concerned that they will get too close to the cable car. At the top, we stroll to one of the restaurants that is set on a ridge with great views in both directions. The outdoor area of the restaurant has long lawn chairs as well as regular tables and many of the patrons are sunning themselves as they enjoy their snacks and drinks. This is also the area where the paragliders take off from and we watch one person jump off the edge and begin to float upwards. This is not a sport I am likely to try but it does look beautiful.

The ride down is less interesting than the ride up......the cars are much more crowded and it is harder to see anything, so we are happy to get off and get back on the ground. On the way back to Trento, we make a short stop at a 325 foot high waterfall that falls through a narrow gorge inside a grotto....lots of spray and interesting rock formations. We have some difficulty getting out of town...the road we need is closed for construction and we have to make a wide detour to reach the road back to Trento. We stop at a farm stand and buy some local cherries which are very good.

Before our last dinner in Trento, we do one more load of laundry and then go out to dinner. We eat at Al Vo', which claims to have been in business since 1325. The dinner is very good...I establish my "credibility" by ordering the tripe soup and the house speciality of polenta, grilled cheese and mushrooms....and Diana's fillet is nicely cooked, flavorful and tender. We started asking about local wines and the waiter immediately begins describing the various options available and pushing us into price ranges higher than we are interested in. We finally select a red wine made from a local grape called Teroldego. The wine that he brings us is terrific....easily the best wine we have had on the trip--smooth, rich, a nice nose, etc. We finish the bottle easily and only after the check arrives do we find out that he had given us the most expensive of the Teroldegos on the list (Euro 25.00). No wonder it was so good.

During dinner, our mobile phone rings. I ignore it the first few times (not wanting to interrupt our dinner) but after the third call Diana answers it. We had called Rosanna (the woman we had met at the laundromat earlier in the week) and left a message on her answering machine. She had just gotten home and immediately called us. She invites us to come to her house after dinner for dessert. We find her apartment building very easily and have a lovely time with her and her husband Luigi. She is as outgoing and friendly as she had been in the laundromat. It is interesting to be in their very nice apartment sitting on the balcony, eating ice cream, drinking coffee and discussing family, travel and restaurants. She tells us about her favorite restaurant in Venice--Anice Stellato--and is amazed when we tell her we had eaten there the week before. From what we understand, Gigi's father had gone to America to work in a silver mine in Silverton, CO and married an American girl. They then returned to Trento where their son was born. During his early years, his mother spoke English to him and though it's been many years that he's had occasion to speak it, he still understands quite a bit. He's now retired after a career as a school principal - Rosanna was a high school teacher. It is a very special evening for us and we exchange e-mail addresses and promise to keep in touch.

I have finally mastered the traffic patterns in Trento so the trip home is uneventful. Tomorrow we are off to Lerici.

Day 17: Trento

2005-06-02T21:23:00.000+02:00

Bressanone/Brixen is our first destination today, a small resort town not far from the Brenner Pass and the Austrian border. The ride north on the autostrada is very scenic, changing from the rugged, rocky mountains between Trento and Bolzano to more forested slopes with villages on the hillsides that have a decidely Alpine look. Today is an Italian holiday--Republic Day--and there is a lot of traffic; we guess that many people are out for a holiday excursion or making a long weekend out of the celebration.

Bressanone's center is a smaller version of Bolzano...typically Germanic architecture, a large piazza in front of the Duomo and mountains ringing the town. Most of the stores are closed for the holiday but there are quite a few tourists window shopping in the narrow pedestrian streets and having coffee at the outdoor cafes. We stop at one for a mid-morning coffee and pastry and read up on Bressanone in the guidebooks. The duomo, with its two imposing bell towers, dates back to the 13th century but the interior has been redone more recently (around 1600?) in a very Baroque style. But the adjoining cloister has not been updated and has an impressive series of frescoes of old and new testament scenes on its walls and ceilings....they are in very good condition and in the good outside light, easy to appreciate.

We don't linger too long in Bressanone/Brixen and are soon on the road to Merano/Meran. We have to head even closer to the Austrian border in order to get to the mountain pass that leads south and west to Merano; as we go further north, the high. snow-capped peaks in Austria appear on the horizon. The same mountains present very striking vistas as we climb higher toward the pass and we see a number of ski areas at the higher elevations. At the pass, we find the usual group of motorcyclists congegated at the bars resting up after their climb. I grab a quick speck sandwich at one of the shops and we begin our descent to the valley. This side of the pass is gentler and greener and we pass through a number of attractive resort towns on the road to Merano.

The entrance into Merano was uneventful....we even pass the hotel where we will be meeting one of my clients later in the afternoon. After a short loop around the "centro", we find a parking lot and walk into the town. There is a pleasant promenade along the river in the middle of town and we sit down in one of the cafes along the promenade to have a late lunch/snack. Again German predominates both in language and cuisine. Diana has a "toast"--ham and cheese on toast--but I order a "polpettone"--fully expecting some sort of meat loaf. Which I guess is what I get...except the "polpettone" in Merano is actually hot dog filling (wurstel) formed into a meatloaf and sliced; much of the large portion on my plate was left uneaten.

We get directions to my first work stop, the Residence Flora, which is two blocks down the riverfront promenade. I had just booked this place from the internet and want to see it first hand. It turns out to be fine--modern and attractive in a good location. I confirm the details of the reservation and we set off to find the Merano synagogue. The Merano Jewish community is predominantly Austrian and it is still quite active. We find the synagogue--which only dates from 1901--in an attractive residential neighborhood set in a pleasant garden. It is plainly identified as a synagogue and doesn't have the ever-present military guards we have seen in other Italian cities.

One of my clients is staying in the Grand Hotel Palace, a five star hotel in Merano....we had discussed getting together just to meet one another in person and say hello. I also want to tell him about the procedures for returning his rental car in Venice so he can take advantage of what we learned on our recent car dropoff experience. En route to the hotel, although we think we are following the correct route (based on the hotel directional signs), we realize that we must have missed a turn; we are suddenly climbing and driving on a road that offers great views over Merano and the valley. I had read that Merano was badly signed for driving, but this was ridiculous. Luckily it was a scenic ride and we had some time to spare.

We retrace our steps, find the same road that we came into Merano on and park in the hotel lot. My client is still out so we set up in the spacious and elegant lobby to wait. I find an wireless internet connection and use the waiting time to catch up on work and e-mail. Just as we are about to leave, the client drives up and we spend about twenty minutes getting acquainted and giving him information for his next several days. We also meet the guide who has taken him around today and we exhange contact information for possible work together in the future. The ride back to Trento is almost all autostrada and we are back at the hotel in about an hour--glad to be back in "Italy."

Dinner tonight is at a quietly elegant restaurant set on a pretty square on the far side of Trento...still only a very pleasant 10 minute walk from the hotel. A number of restaurants are closed today because of the holiday and all the outside seating at Il Cappello is taken. But the candle-lit inside room is very attractive, pleasant jazz is playing in the background and the dinner is very satisfying, especially my filet of orata. We enjoy the meal and appreciate how professionally the restaurant is run.

It is a very nice evening as we stroll back to the hotel....tomorrow we head south to see the Trentino part of Lago di Garda.

Day 16: Trento

2005-06-01T23:35:00.000+02:00

It is another hot and sunny day, but very pleasant having breakfast in the courtyard. Our first destination in Trento is the Castello Buonconsiglio, a massive castle on the other side of town. We decide to drive and park in the pay parking lot just across the street. Unfortunately, when we get there all the spaces are filled and there are many cars jockeying for position to grab an empty space when one appears. This sends us on an unplanned tour of the commercial districts of Trento. The traffic patterns are such (like in Ravenna) that cars are restricted to a wide circular path (seemingly one-way route) around the centro. So after circling the city once, we end back at the same parking area and find a space immediately.

The castle is vast and much of it is in very good condition. The original building dates to the 13th century and much of the decoration was done in the 16th century, when Trento was in its heyday and most famously hosted the deliberations of the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563. The most well-known (and best preserved) decorations are the Frescoes of the Months, painted around 1400 by a German artist. It depicts a year in the life of a feudal manor with scenes of nobles hunting, dancing and flirting, and peasants working the fields and otherwise keeping the estate going. According to the audioguide, the frescoes represented the last gasp of the "international gothic style" which wanted to romanticize the feudal system then in decline. [I can't vouch for the assessment of that characterization but it sounds reasonable.] There are many other frescoes around the castle including a large one of Charlemagne in the main entrance hall as well as galleries filled with pictures of the various bishops of Trent and a large collection of ceramic stoves. In addition, there are nice views over Trento from the open loggia on the upper level.

Our next stop is the Duomo, a large cathedral whose long side wall faces the main piazza. As one book says, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts." Apart from an impressive rose window and its bell tower, there is nothing particularly striking inside the building but it does present an impressive sight joined to the adjacent palazzo with its turrets and stone facing and dominating the piazza.

For lunch today, we go to a local Trento institution called Pedavena....a combination trattoria and beer hall that occupies many rooms, a large outdoor courtyard and garden. They brew their own beer there and one of the rooms is filled with the vats and tubing for the beer production. I have the combination plate of Trentino specialities....goulash, sauerkraut, polenta, canerderlo (like a matzoh ball) wurstel (hot dog) and a large slab of smoked pork--the highlight of the combo. But all the the food is very heavy and the portion size is gigantic....I barely make a dent. Diana has a caprese...a large ball of good mozzarella and some pretty good tomatoes and another very good prosciutto and melon. Even though the place is obviously popular and is doing a good business, in the end we are not that happy with it.

We go back to the hotel to escape the heat of the day....I get some work done...and in the late afternoon, we get into the car and drive up the side of the mountain that overlooks Trento. We end up at the top of the funavia....the cable car that runs from Trento to a village about 2,000 feet over the city. We spend some time admiring the view; this altitude makes it easy to see the layout of the town and to identify neighborhoods and landmarks; it is also fun to watch the trains as they approach and depart. We stay to watch the cable car make its 5 pm run....it only takes 4 minutes for one car to descend and the other to ascend.

On the way back to the hotel, we explore some of the other neighborhoods of Trento and find the location of the second Slow Food restaurant in town. Dinner tonight is at the first Slow Food restaurant, Al Volt. The place is empty except for one solitary male diner, but the proprietor is very welcoming so we stay to eat. We share a plate of local Trentino ham and salami served with a potato pancake, which is very good. My main course is again mammoth...a meaty, well prepared pork shank (stinco di maiale) served with a mountain of delicious polenta and a pile of flavorful mushrooms. Unfortunately, I leave most of it on my plate, as good as it is.

We are too full to stop for a gelato as we stroll through Trento back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we are going back to the Alto Adige....Bressanone/Brixen and Merano/Meran, where I will visit a hotel and meet a client.

Day 15: Trento

2005-05-31T18:23:00.000+02:00

After breakfast in our lovely courtyard, we get on the autostrada and head north to Bolzano/Bozen, the principal city of the German speaking Alto Adige. Once off the autostrada, the route to the center snakes around the industrial suburbs but in a few minutes, we are parked in an underground parking garage under the city's main square, the Piazza Walther (or Waltherplatz). Entering the piazza, we feel we are in a different world. The square is quite attractive, outdoor cafes on three sides with benches and flowers everywhere. But the architecture is not Italian...it looks like pictures of German or Austrian towns. The cathedral is very Germanic in appearance as are the buildings. It is elegant and sophisticated but not what we are used to.

After catching our breath and trying to get our bearings, we walk through the cathedral (inside it is more familiar than the outside) and stop for cup of coffee in one of the cafes, where we are startled when the waitress initially speaks to us in German.

In fact, Bolzano/Bozen is a gorgeous city....the pedestrian-only streets have graceful porticoes on either side, it is clean with virtually no graffiti or litter to be seen. The streets are lined with high-end shops and, in fact, it almost looks like a big themed shopping mall. We stop at a bakery and buy a "brezen" which resembles the New York City bagel pretzels of Diana's youth...unfortunately, it doesn't taste much like them. There is a food market in one of the streets....the fruits and vegetables are beautiful and we are amused to see the most common food stalls selling what look like long American hot dogs (wurstel) that are served as finger food, with the bread or roll on the side.

The big attraction in Bolzano is "Otzi, the Iceman", a 5,000 year old mummy that was found in the 1990s, high in the mountains, by a couple who were out for hike. They immediately reported this to the authorities who quickly realized that this was not the remains of a recent accident but something very remarkable. The archeology museum has constructed a refrigerated display area where Otzi (who was given this apparently homey name to make him more "accessible" to visitors) is viewed through a window, lying in the same position as when he was found. There are extensive exhibits, including videos documenting the recovery, subsequent medical examinations using all the modern diagnostic tools and a model that recreates what Otzi may have looked like as he hunted in the Dolomites 5,000 years ago. The exhibits also document much about his tools, weapons and clothing, reconstructing them as much as possible using the materials found near his body. It is a little eerie to see this body stretched out in the display case and to watch the videos of the doctors probing and prodding with all their modern medical tools, but it is also quite fascinating to see this actual person who lived so long ago. [NOTE: If you go to see Otzi and don't have a guide or the audio tour, make sure you go to the bookshop in the museum first and purchase the excellent English language book about Otzi and the exhibit. This is one of my "rules" when visiting museums, churches, etc. which we unfortunately forgot and didn't follow in Bolzano.]

For lunch we have mediocre salads on a lovely outdoor terrace of a bar that is set in a park that runs along the river and then walk back to town to get the car. We are heading for Cles, the main town in the Val di Non--a beautiful valley south and west of Bolzano; it is the main apple growing area in Italy and is back in the Italian speaking province of Trentino. Before reaching Cles, we have to go over the Passo di Mendola (4500 feet) but this route is more wooded and has fewer spectacular mountain vistas. Cles is set above a pretty artificial lake--Lago di Santa Giustina--which is an amazing shade of green in the leg we cross on the way into Cles. There is a large church in the center of the not particularly beautiful "centro" although the location in the green valley and on the slopes of the green hills is quite nice. There is a large castle on the shore of the lake, but when we drive down the dirt road--Via del Castello--we find a sign that tells us that "entrance is prohibited." We stop at the tourist information office to get directions to an older church--San Vigilio--that has frescoes done by a follower of Giotto; the lady in the office is very helpful with maps and directions and seems to enjoy practicing her English. She tells us that the castle is not open to the public (the owner has moved away) but gives us a brochure describing it. She also recommends that we drive to the park that overlooks the lake for "a beautiful view".

The park is indeed lovely with great views over the castle and the lake from its observation platform that also serves as the stage for the small amphitheater built into the hillside. It is very well kept up with several different themed "trails" describing the rocks, flowers and animals of the area. (Next to the park is a day care center.....if only Diana had made an inspection visit, she could have deducted part of the cost of our trip.) We stop at the church on the way down the hill. It is a small stone church set in a garden....inside, the walls are covered with the frescoes that are in very good condition, including a Last Judgment and a Last Supper. It is a special experience, standing alone in a small, out of the way but reasonably well lit church and being close enough to see the details in the frescoes.

Back in Trento, we say goodbye to Fernando (the Paraguayan desk clerk at the hotel); he is leaving his job so he can go to the University full time. We have dinner tonight at Trattoria Al Tino....we sit outside on the small deck and talk to the Irish couple at the next table. [Confession: writing this 6 days later, we can't remember what we ate.] I have a a gelato on the way back to the hotel (an unusual but delicious cinnamon flavor).

Tomorrow we will see the sights in Trento.

Day 14: Trento

2005-05-30T19:05:00.000+02:00

We sleep well and somewhat late (until 8 am) in our air-conditioned room with the windows and shutters closed. In addition to the air-conditioning, our room at the Accademia is spacious and the bathroom is the best we have had yet, well lit and roomy, lots of water pressure and hot water. We enjoy our breakfast in the outdoor courtyard....it encourages you to linger after finishing eating.

We get in the car and head north through the commercial and industrial section of Trento, which is typical for a bustling small Italian city--shopping centers, car dealerships, and factories line the road. At Lavis, we take a small road that heads east through the very scenic Val di Cembra. The road climbs gradually and the hillsides are covered with vineyards. There is a quite a bit of construction along the road which slows us up but we are in no hurry. We also notice that many of the towns have one or more traffic lights, even when there doesn't appear to be any real need; we are not used to seeing stop lights in most small towns in other parts of Italy. We continue to climb as we enter ski country and we begin to get glimpses of very high peaks around some of the turns. We stop for coffee in the town of Moena, a bustling ski resort which is pretty quiet in this period before the summer tourist season really gets underway. Although it is warm, the air is crisper than it is in Trento and the Avisio River that runs through town is clear and sparkling in the sun.

We now begin to climb in earnest towards the Passo di Sella at over 6,000 feet. The road is a continuous series of hairpin turns as it moves up the side of the mountain. Many motorcyclists pass us as we move up the mountainside but we pass many intrepid bicyclists struggling to keep moving up the steep grade. We are now face to face with the sheer rock cliffs of the rugged Dolomite peaks; as we make each turn, new and more stunning mountain scenery is revealed. Finally we are at the top, the more austere Val di Fassa behind us and the greener, gentler Val di Gardena in front of us. At the hotel and gift shop at the Pass, buses have stopped to let the riders take pictures and a herd of motorcyclists have grouped together before they head down the other side. (No matter how high one goes in Italy or how deep in the countryside one gets, you will almost always find a bar and a souvenir stand.).

The other side of the mountain is Alto Adige or Sud Tirol...the German dominated part of the region. Signs are now in Italian, German and Ladin, a local dialect dating back to Roman times. The trip down is less precipitous than the climb up and we are soon driving through a number of pretty but very built up ski resorts--Selva and Ortisei (or St. Ulrich in German.) We stop for a sandwich at the Elvis Bar in Ortisei before heading on to see the very pretty town of Castelrotto/Kastelruhe on the way back to Trento. Castelrotto is picture perfect.....the valley is a soft shade of green and there are farms dotting the landscape as well as many guest houses. The village is very attractive with a nice square and an old castle.

As we leave Castelrotto, we notice signs that say something about a road being closed somewhere near the A22 autostrada, but we don't think it applies to the road that we are on. We descend into the valley to get on the autostrada (which runs along the Isarco River in the valley between two ranges of mountains) just north of Bolzano. As we enter the town where the autostrada entrance is, we see another of the signs we had seen in Castelrotto and a barrier across our lane. We notice other cars who seem to be confused as we are. I look at the map to find an alternate route to the autostrada or to Bolzano but the next entrance to the north is about 20 miles away. We stop at the office of the local carabinieri to ask....the policeman confirms that the road (the main highway between Bolzano and the Brenner Pass) is indeed closed. I ask him how to get south to Bolzano and he shows me on the map that I have to take a small road up into the hills for about 10 kilometers which then connects with one of the main roads that goes back west to Bolzano....approximately 25 kilometers of narrow, curvy roads to get just beyond the closed section of highway where the autostrada entrance is. And there is no explanation anywhere of a detour or encouragement to take an alternate route.....just signs saying the road is closed.

It turns out the detour we have to take has the best views of the mountains that we have seen today.....broad vistas across green fields to a long row of rocky peaks, some covered with snow, other just bare rock at the top. As we climb, each turn of the road gives us a different angle on the various mountain ranges. And the road down to the valley is part of the old route called the Strada dei Dolomiti (Dolomite Road) that stretches from near Bolzano to the large ski resort in the Veneto, Cortina d'Ampezzo. This section goes through a narrow gorge and the swiftly flowing river constantly switches sides of the road as we descend to the valley floor. It is quite a ride and completely unplanned.

Once we reach the autostrada, the trip back to Trento is very quick and, once in town, I discover a short cut to reach the hotel from the autostrada exit by using (inadvertently) a road reserved for buses. It deposits us right at the entrance to the "centro storico" and two blocks from our hotel.

After a short rest, we decide to do a laundry at the Onda Blu laundromat in Trento. This laundromat--located just on the far side of the Duomo--is dingy and poorly equipped compared to the ones we had used in Ravenna and Venice, but we load up one machine and settle in to wait. There are five other people in the laundromat, two Italian couples doing their bedding and--in the small world department--an American from Washington DC. His wife--a professor from American University--has run a program at the University of Trento and they have spent part of the last few years in Trento. Now they are here for two weeks trying to finish up shipping their belongings home.

Our washing machine seems to be malfunctioning....but with the help of Randy, the American....we nurse it through its cycle. Meanwhile, a conversation has started with the Italians; one of the women (Rosanna) is very outgoing and she begins talking to Diana about laundry, Italy and other things. She has no English but her husband, whose parents lived in Colorado early in the 1900s, does speak English very well, if reluctantly. The other Italian woman seems very surprised at all this discussion. She says that most Trentinesi are very reserved but when she learns that Rosanna is originally from Abruzzo, she says that explains it - people from there are more at ease talking to strangers.

Rosanna ends up inviting us to call her and arrange a time for us to get together. We exchange names and phone numbers and everyone shakes hands as the Italians leave the laundromat. We've had interactions with patrons in other laundromats but those had more to do with the mechanics of doing laundry. This was more personal and more friendly.

After the laundry is finished, we have a discussion with the very engaging afternoon desk clerk at the hotel, Fernando, who is originally from Paraguay and has now settled in Trento. He reviews some of the restaurants that I have written down and makes a number of additional suggestions. We finally decide on Trattoria Orso Grigio (Gray Bear), which is actually just around the corner from where we had done the laundry. The restaurant has a large garden which is under a modernistic tent-like covering. Dinner is quite successful......we split an plate of local salami to start; Diana follows with a nice plate of lamb chops and I have a local variety of meat filled ravioli in a buttery sauce.

We make a short stop in the main square before heading back to the hotel. Tomorrow we will visit the main city of the Alto Adige, Bolzano.

Day 13: Venice-Trento

2005-05-29T16:41:00.000+02:00

On our last morning in Venice, I have my last look at the Campo waking up. The breakfast room is full so the desk clerk suggests that we might want to eat on our balcony. Why hadn't we thought of that earlier in the week?

Due to the hot weather and our large amount of luggage (and in the interest of research), we decide to take a water taxi to the Piazzale Roma where we pick up our rental car. The taxi picks us up on the far side of the Campo and we wrestle our luggage onto the boat, crawl through the low cabin and stand in the stern. We cruise at a leisurely pace through the back canals until we suddenly emerge on the Grand Canal. Now we are passing the vaporetti and I am sure that the passengers are wondering who the jet-setters in the private boat are. It is a lot of fun and the boat delivers us to the far side of the Piazzale Roma where we wrestle our luggage onto the dock. We enjoy our moment of "jet-setting" and are glad not to have had to struggle with all our bags across the bridge and on and off the vaporetto...all for Euro 50.00 (including the Sunday surcharge, the pickup fee and the charge for extra luggage).

I leave Diana with the bags, go to pick up the car and then drive back to load the luggage. I have to use the restricted bus lanes to get to the spot where Diana is waiting but there are no repercussions. We are soon packed up and on our way back to the mainland and on the road to Trento.

We enjoyed our time in Venice and especially liked the neighborhood feel of Cannaregio. There were plenty of restaurants in the area and enough attractions to keep us occupied. It was a bit of walk or boat ride to San Marco, but we didn't miss not being in "the middle of things", especially when we saw the crowds that packed the area. The hot weather (it was over 85 each day) certainly impinged on our stamina but didn't sour us on Venice. On the contrary, I think we are now ready for an extended stay there but in a cooler season.

We take the autostrada north to Belluno where we will head west on local roads to Trento. As we drive north past Treviso, the mountains are a faint outline in the distance but as we get closer, the landscape becomes increasingly dramatic. Around Vittorio Veneto and Conegliano (centers for the production of Prosecco sparkling wines), the hills are topped with castles and covered with vineyards and the rugged peaks of the Dolomites to the north and west become more prominent. The drive west is less dramatic until we we enter the Valsugana, just outside of Trento. The valley is planted with apple trees and vegetables and the very beautiful Lake Caldarazzo is packed with Sunday day trippers.

The entrance into Trento takes us through the commercial suburbs but we have no trouble finding the Hotel Accademia, located just inside the "centro storico". The hotel doesn't have parking but they do give us a sticker that allows us to park on the street near the hotel--the staff is careful to point out "only between the white stripes", Trento has not given us our hoped for relief from the heat--it is as hot as it was in Venice--but the hotel staff has turned on the air-conditioning and the room is cool and comfortable. After unpacking, getting settled and trying out the internet connection (it is not as good as in Venice but tolerable), we go to the hotel restaurant for lunch. They are set up in the beautiful outdoor courtyard (the same place that breakfast is served) and we enjoy a relaxed lunch. The waiter speaks some English and he asks us to "trust him" in terms of what to order. The menu is strangely international with some Trentino specialities (which the waiter disdains); there are some Greek dishes and rice dish with Thai seasonings, but most of the menu is pan-Italian. I have a wonderful carpaccio followed by a tasty dish of tagliatelle with mushrooms while Diana has an intriguing but slightly strange dish of artichoke hearts with ginger (an uncommon spice in Italy) and a good gnocchetti with small shrimp. We have a couple of glasses of wine (white from Sicily) and learn that the restaurant--Araliki--is a owned by a Greek (from Rome) and our waiter (Dragos) is his son.

After lunch and a little work, I set out for a quick exploration of the town. I am very impressed with the main piazza, dominated by the large Romanesque duomo and the medieval palazzo that houses the museum. Many of the other buildings are heavily frescoed (Trento calls itself "the painted city" and there are a number of sidewalk cafes ringing the piazza, all quite crowded on this Sunday afternoon. The piazza is also filled with individual garden plots which are part of an installation all over town called Giardini in Citta (gardens in the city). Different towns are competing with garden plots that illustrate local myths and fables. Some of the installations are quite elaborate with playground equipment and children's activities built in. Many of the Trento public buildings have opened their courtyards and there are different art installations on display.

The center also has an extensive pedestrian only shopping area that is very attractive, with lots of small hidden courtyards and portico lined streets. In one piazza, I come across the Festa dei Popoli, a international fair that is winding up this afternoon. There are booths from many countries, mostly non-European, which display their national handicrafts and serve local food. On a large stage, there are performers from some of these countries; while I am there, a Bolivian band is playing.

After it has cooled down a bit, Diana and I head out to the Piazza Duomo and for a short stroll around town. A the Festa dei Popoli, we stop and talk to the people at the Thailand booth who are surprised to hear someone speaking to the them in Thai. One of the Thai women runs a restaurant in Chiangmai and invites us to come and visit her there. We listen to an Argentinian singing some tango songs while couples from the local tango club in nearby Bolzano dances to the music. After checking out some of the garden installations, we sit in a cafe in the very attractive Piazza Duomo and have a drink.

We had a large, late lunch today so we decide to go a very stylish restaurant, Lo Scrigno del Duomo, which is right on the main square. They offer a variety of menus, including selections of local cured meats and cheeses, which is just what we want for dinner tonight. The restaurant is very busy and we eat in the very attractive front courtyard, The cheeses and salume are delicious although the bread is not very good. In the middle of dinner, a very loud ska band begins to play in the front of the Duomo.....and basically puts an end to any conversation for the rest of the meal. After we finish, we go out to watch them play for a while in front of a very enthusiastic audience of young people but we don't last too long and head back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we plan to drive into the heart of the Dolomites.

Day 12: Venice

2005-05-28T17:40:00.000+02:00

Another early morning watching the Campo wake up....this is one of the great pleasures of our location and the balcony. After breakfast, we walk over to the synagogue for Saturday morning services that begin at 9 am (or so we were told by the guide on our synagogue tour). At 8:45 am, there is no one around except for us, a older man in a red baseball hat and a man and wife...the man carrying a tallis. We wonder if we have the time right when....precisely at 9 am....the doors of the synagogue are opened and we go in. Our documents are scrutinized by one of the security staff (he asks where we have come from, Diana answers Washington DC but he wants to know where we are staying in Venice) and Diana has to leave her pocketbook at the entrance.

The synagogue is up one flight of stairs....in this orthodox synagogue, they don't use the regular women's gallery located near the ceiling but they have sectioned off one half of the main floor behind a screen for the women who come to pray. The room is very large with extremely high ceilings. There are large arched windows on three sides; as the service begins they are being opened to let in some air. This synagogue--called the Levantine--is used in the summer; the German synagogue across the campo is used during the winter, because it has a heating system.

We are there at the very beginning of the service...the rabbi sits in a chair to the right of the ark and chants very rapidly in Hebrew. At the start, there are just over 10 people in the congregation but during the half hour we are there, the number grows to about thirty men and five women. As people arrive, some go to the front and shake hands with the rabbi as well as greeting other members of the congregation. There is a lot of participation by the congregation as the rabbi flies through the service. Most of the men are middle aged or older; there are only a few in their 20s and 30s and only one teenager, who marches around the synagogue as if he owns the place.

For me the service is impossible to follow. Diana who knows the service much better than I does a bit better (and her prayerbook has some Italian in it) but it is very moving to see the enthusiasm of the congregation and to think about the history of the Jews in Venice and their struggles. One interesting thing is the way that the men put on their tallis, not merely draping it over their shoulders, but dramatically unfurling the cloth and wrapping it around their heads (not unlike an Arab head covering) before putting it on over their shoulders. (D: They pray in the Sephardic mode, with no "tunes" that are recognizable to me. The rabbi has a nice voice and two other men also take turns in leading the chanting. The congregation chimes in loudly at the end of prayers and in the ones that are done responsively. Next time I or we will stay longer.)

We leave after about a half an hour...we are not sure if the security person is disapproving as he returns Diana's pocketbook...but we have an appointment at the very luxurious Hotel Cipriani to meet the marketing manager and have a tour. I have two clients staying there in the next month so I want to take the opportunity to check it out. The Grand Canal vaporetto takes about 45 minutes to reach Piazza San Marco (the #1 boat makes every stop and there are lots of tourists getting on and off and much jockeying for position). There we have to pick up the Cipriani private launch that takes guests to the hotel on the Giudecca Island about five minutes away from San Marco. The Cipriani is a park like oasis in the crowded city....beautiful gardens, comfortable public rooms, lots of staff ready to help you and an Olympic size swimming pool.

The marketing manager, a very pleasant young woman, takes us around the property apologizing, since the hotel is full, that she can't show us any rooms. But we do see the dining rooms, the tennis courts, the private apartments, the new reception area and the spa. finishing off with cool drink near the pool. The launch takes us back to San Marco and to a sort of different reality...if you can characterize Venice as "reality".

We return to the jewelry shop near the Accademia to show the owner the necklace that Diana bought there on a previous trip....he explains that the reason that the price was so much lower is that it was made from broken pieces of glass and the most recent purchase is made from intact pieces. We then ask him for a recommendation for a place to eat in the neighborhood and he recommends the Ristorante San Trovaso which has just opened a new place with a garden. We take his advice and have a pleasant lunch though, even in the shade of umbrellas in the garden, it is still quite warm. I have a wonderful plate of spaghetti alle vongole, these clams bigger and meatier that those usually used in the dish in Italy. Diana has her standard prosciutto and melon, the melon not quite as good as previous ones but the prosciutto is delicious. We have dessert at the gelateria on the Giudecca Canal....very good ice cream at a table with a view of the Giudecca Canal. It is only steps to the vaporetto dock and we have a pleasant ride on an empty vaporetto with a cool sea breeze back to the stop near the hotel.

While Diana reads, I head out to look at one more hotel, the Locanda del Gaffaro, where I have booked a room for a client later in the month. The hotel is not far from the Piazzale Roma and the train station in an area that I don't know very well. I am surprised how quiet and peaceful it is, being within minutes of the hustle and bustle of the station and the entrance to Venice. I find the hotel and have a brief chat with the owner who also can't show me any rooms because of the hotel is fully booked. I pick up a few brochures and start wandering in some of the back canals of the area. I suddenly find myself back near the Rialto and as I cross the bridge, the heat finally gets to me and I choose to take a vaporetto back.

After a shower and a rest, we have to decide about where to go to dinner.....and we both agree that we don't have the energy (the heat has taken its toll; it has been at least 85 degrees every day) to go too far afield or to have too elaborate a meal. We head to the neighborhood restaurant around the corner--Al Faro--where we had eaten pizza two days before. On this Saturday night at 8 pm, we are surprised to see that the place is packed and there is not one outside table free. Many of the tables are filled with families with young children and the kids treat the outdoor dining area as their personal running track. But the wait staff and the other customers are very tolerant of children (as we have found all over Italy). We wait for about ten minutes for a table and then wait for a much longer time for our pizzas...but we have wine and are in a relaxed (or exhausted) mood. We both order the same kind pizza that I had enjoyed on our previous visit, topped with sausage, cheese and arugula--and the pizza is good again. We get the check and return to the Campo for our last night in Venice.

Tomorrow we head north and west for Trento and the Dolomiti and hopefully some cooler temperatures.

Day 11: Venice

2005-05-27T21:22:00.000+02:00

We are up early again....the sun is up before 6 am here in Venice. Last night is the first time that the noise from the campo disturbed us.....most especially the sounds of the restaurant below closing up--moving plastic tables and chairs makes a big racket. (Of course we chose a hotel on a campo, and a room with a balcony.)

After breakfast, we pack up our dirty laundry and walk over to the laundromat on the main street just five minutes from our hotel. The proprietor is on the premises and she gets us organized very quickly, leading me to the proper machines and directing me about which buttons to push and where to put the money. She doesn't know that we are Italian laundromat professionals and, in fact, we help several of the customers, including one Italian woman, get their laundries started. In fact, the only time that most Italians seem to use a laundromat is when they have to wash their quilts and bedcovers--they are too large for most of their home washing machines.

This laundromat is clean and well organized and we are out in just over an hour, in time to take the 10:30 tour of the synagogues in the Ghetto. There are many people waiting for the tour but the museum staff is skilled in organizing the groups and staggering the tours so that the mostly small synagogues are not overwhelmed with crowds. The tour--in English--visits three of the five synagogues in the Ghetto; the two largest ones are still in use for regular services and are not visited on the tour. All three of the synagogues that are on the tour are built into the upper floors of buidings in the ghetto; you can't distinguish them from outside except by the five arched windows across the front facade. One is directly above our hotel. All of them were built in the early 1500s, shortly after Venice established the first ghetto; it was getting too dangerous for Jews to live outside the city walls so the city officials decided to bring the Jews into the city but to keep them isolated in their own restricted zone from dusk to dawn.

All of the synagogues were designed and built by Christian architects and craftsmen; Jews were limited to only a few trades--doctors, moneylenders and cloth merchants- so the synagogues have some "un-synagogue" -like decorative and architectural characteristics. The five synagogues were needed because the various Jewish communities had different backgrounds, languages and customs. There were Sephardic Jews from the Middle East, Spain and Portugal, Ashkenazi Jews from Germany and France, and Italian Jews who had been in Rome from before the birth of Christ. The ghetto also has the tallest buildings in Venice....the buildings had to accommodate about 5,000 residents in a very small area.

The tour of the ghetto is fascinating and moving....the different buildings have subtle differences in design and feel. Some of the arrangements are due to factors such as how much weight the floors of the buildings could support so the ark and the reader's pulpit have to be on opposite sides of the room. The Venetian officials restricted the kinds of materials that could be used in the synagogues, so there are no precious metals or marble...rather artisans created marble-like painted surfaces that we were told are now more valuable than actual marble.

After a short walk through the Jewish Museum, we browse at a few of the shops and galleries in the Ghetto and then stop in at a used bookshop that is run by a friend of Howard Fitzpatrick's. We have a nice conversation with the proprietor, buy a book, have a glass of prosecco with him and ask him for some restaurant recommendations in the area. He recommends a neighborhood trattoria frequented by workmen that he says serves a very good lunch for 11 euros...it has no name but it is located just beyond a wooden cross set in the sidewalk on the next canal over .

Since it is time for lunch, we decide to eat there. We almost give up before we finally see the wooden cross and a building with a green awning and no sign. We go inside and the most of the tables are filled by men--not a woman in sight other than the two waitresses. While waiting to be seated, I take a look in the back and see some tables set up in a pretty courtyard. We decide to eat out there since it is very warm inside. Lunch was indeed very good--Diana has a delicious risotto with seafood, and vitello tonnato (veal slices in tuna flavored mayonnaise) and I have spaghetti with mussels in a vibrant tomato sauce and terrific baked stuffed sardines in pesto. It is the type of lunch experience that you read about but rarely experience; we certainly wouldn't have found it without the recommendation of the book dealer.

I have made arrrangements to visit some Venetian hotels so we head for La Calcina in the Dorsoduro neighborhood, where we had actually stayed on our first trip to Venice. This is one of our nicer vaparetto rides....the boat isn't crowded and we get a nice breeze. The vaparetto stop where we get off is right in front of Gelateria Nico, so we have a refreshing gelato before heading on to the hotel. The hotel has remodelled and upgraded since our stay there in 1994 but it is still one of the more affordable hotels with some sense of style. The room with a terrace overlooking the canal is especially nice.

After leaving the hotel, we stop in the jewelry shop at the Accademia Bridge where Diana had bought necklaces on each of our previous trips. The store specializes in jewelry made with Venetian glass and African beads, as well as African statues. And on this trip, since she has a birthday present coming to her, she buys another necklace. We have a nice talk with the very charming proprietor about his business and his products. Diana tells him that she always gets compliments on his necklaces and will stop in again to show him one that she bought on a previous visit to his store.

We stop at another hotel, the Hotel American, where I meet the manager and tour the hotel. This is a very nice three star hotel that clients have been very happy with, but I find the rooms overdecorated and a little musty.

We have plans to meet our friends for a drink and to say goodby at 6 pm at the Hotel Orion (near San Marco), which means that we have some time to kill. We hop on a vaparetto to San Marco and I plan to visit another hotel, the Metropole, a very popular four star that I have used frequently for clients. The walk from the vaparetto stop to the Metropole takes us right across the mouth of Piazza San Marco. This is our first time in this area on this trip and we are amazed at the crowds; the atmosphere is very different from what we are experiencing in Cannaregio.

By the time we reach the Metropole, my contact has already left for the day but we take advantage of the air-conditioned lobby to rest for a while before we go to meet our friends. It is the end of a long day, the sun is still very strong and we try to take advantage of the shadier streets that wend their way through the area north of San Marco. We make one more rest stop in a cafe on the Campo Santa Maria Formosa before getting to our meeting place. We escort our friends to a pizzeria (they are having an early dinner because both couples are leaving tomorrow) and say our goodbyes. We then have the hike to the Rialto to pick up a vaparetto back to our hotel.

For dinner, we decide to stay in the neighborhood and head to a very well recommended place called Anice Stellato (Star Anise). When I had tried to make reservations the previous day, they told me that they were booked, but we walk over there hoping that they can fit us in at the last minute. It turns out that they can. The restaurant is very informal with wooden tables, butcher paper place mats and red paper napkins, but the menu is quite ambitious, mixing together Venetian standbys and more creative dishes. We both have risotto with seafood to start--beautifully cooked--and I have the best fritto misto ever, a very large portion including terrific fried vegetables and a delicate small whole sole. Diana has a roast lamb preparation with fabulous roasted potatoes. With this terrific meal, we drink a wonderful bottle of Adami prosecco. We would be happy to return.

Luckily it is short walk back to the Ghetto because it has a been a long day and we are ready for bed. Tomorrow morning we plan to go to services at one of the synagogues not on the tour, and then make an inspection visit to the Hotel Cipriani.

Day 10: Venice

2005-05-26T20:23:00.000+02:00

We are up early again, in spite of a second late night. I again sit out on the balcony and work on the computer, while watching the campo wake up. After breakfast, we set out for a walk around the quiet streets and canals of the Cannaregio neighborhood. This is where Tintoretto lived and worked and the imposing14th century Church of Madonna dell'Orto--his parish church--has a number of his paintings as well as his body--he and other members of his family are buried there. There are two large paintings of his in the front--The Israelites at Mount Sinai and a very graphic Last Judgement- among other smaller works....they are at the same time very intense and very realistic. The contrast with the cooler, serene Renaissance painting of St. John the Baptist and Saints by Cima da Conegliano is striking.

We are meeting our friends at the train station vaparetto stop for our excursion to Torcello, the now almost deserted island in the lagoon where the first Venetian settlement was established in the 6th and 7th centuries. In order to get to Torcello, we take a direct vaparetto to Murano, change for the boat to Burano and then the short hop to Torcello. Even with good connections, it takes about 45 minutes on crowded boats. We get to Torcello just after noon and walk the 15 minutes to the church and basilica at the other side of the island. There is not much left on the island, which at its height had a population of 20.000. The location became malarial and the settlement was moved to its present site in the 13th century. Now only about 20 people live on Torcello....but there are several restaurants to take care of visitors.

The 11th century church of Santa Fosca is very simple and plain and looks very Byzantine...there is very little decoration but the austere walls in the Greek cross building give the church a restful, serene feel. The large basilica that adjoins the church--Santa Maria Assunta--is very different. Dating back to the 7th century (the oldest building in the lagoon), there is a beautiful mosaic floor and amazing mosaics on the walls and in the front of the church. The apse has a simple portrait of a Madonna and Child set on a gold background and the back wall has a outsized Last Judgement with graphic scenes of what happens to the damned...it was done about the same time that Dante was writing his Inferno and describing some of the same scenes. Seeing these amazing mosaics in this remote church on this almost deserted island makes our visit to Torcello very special. We forgo the museum and the climb to the top of the campanile in favor of lunch.

There is a very expensive restaurant on the island--the Locanda Cipriani--but we eat at Al Ponte del Diavolo (At the Devil's Bridge) which turns out to be terrific. The outdoor space is set out in a lush garden in the back with lots of tables nicely set and filled with many diners. There is only one waiter working the large crowd but he does a good job and the setting encourages a great deal of patience from the diners. The food was very good, but we probably give it higher marks because of the setting and enjoyment of having lunch with our old friends Some of the better dishes were prosciutto and melon, the grilled fish, and the fritto misto and we drank a lot of the light, crisp, refreshing Veneto white wine. It was one of those long, lazy al fresco Italian lunches that you read about and always hope to experience.

We make good connections on the way back but I am surprised that the boat ends its run at the Fondamente Nove on the north side of Venice. Since our friends are staying near the Rialto, I suggest it would be more convenient for them to walk there rather than take the long route by vaparetto. We get on the next boat that goes down the Cannareggio canal and stops close to our hotel. We are back in the Ghetto about 5:00 pm and Diana reads while I try to do some work. But the two late nights and early mornings, as well as the heat, the boat trips and the great lunch with wine, catch up with me and I fall asleep. The next thing I know it is almost 10......we decide to go down to the restaurant under our balcony but the kitchen is closed, so we go to the next nearest restaurant, Al Faro, just around the corner. We both order pizza....and to my surprise--since I am not a big fan of the Italian style of pizza, my pizza with cheese, sausage and arugula is excellent--great crust and very tasty. Diana's pizza marinara is less successful but we enjoy the restaurant--the staff is very friendly and one of the waiters puts on juggling exhibition to the delight of his colleagues and the customers.

After the short walk back to the hotel, we are able to fall asleep without much difficulty. Tomorrow, we plan to do a laundry and visit some hotels.

Day 9: Venice

2005-05-25T18:46:00.000+02:00

Bright and sunny outside this morning....we know that very early, because the air-conditioning has not yet been turned on at the Locanda del Ghetto, so we are sleeping with our window and the balcony doors wide open. I get up about 6 am and sit out on the balcony to do some work....it is very pleasant to watch the Campo wake up....people crossing the square on their way to work, the streetsweeper cleaning up, mothers with children on their way to school, old women on their way to the market and the ever-present soldiers (all synagogues in Italy are guarded by the military since an attack on the Rome synagogue in the 1970s) who come on duty very early . No cars and no motor scooters......

We have a leisurely morning (it had been a late night). Breakfast at the Locanda is one of the least elaborate we have seen.....no cappuccino even. Only one cornetti and couple of mediocre rolls with butter jam, juice and tea or caffe latte. After breakfast, we walk on the main street in Cannaregio; it is very busy....lots of stores, a small market with fruits and vegetables--but except for the tourists walking from the train station to the Rialto, it seems to be very Venetian. We stop for a coffee at a cafe and Diana writes some postcards. On our walk, we locate a self service laundromat that we plan to use while we are in Venice.

After a stop at the hotel, we walk to the vaparetto stop on the Grand Canal--San Marcuola--and take the boat to the Rialto bridge. It is already quite warm and the dock is very hot making the ten minute wait for the boat seem even longer. When it does arrive, it is very crowded and we have to fight for a place to stand near the railing, in order to get a cool breeze.

The Rialto area is also very crowded but the people appear to be mostly tourists. We are too late for much of the market but we walk through the narrow streets and come out in the Campo San Polo. Campo San Polo is a huge square and lots of benches....besides tourists taking a short break from their rounds, the campo is also the neighborhood park for the residents of the area. Children are kicking a soccer ball around and playing with toys under the watchful eyes of their parents or grandparents.

We go inside the Church of San Polo and buy a Chorus Pass--a comprehensive ticket for 15 churches all over Venice....good for two years. With the admission ticket, the churches have also developed a one page handout on a laminated plastic card, that has a map of the church and identifies each of the pieces of art.....a very welcome development for those who often are confused in Italian churches. The highlights of San Polo for me are the Tiepolo (the son) Stations of the Cross and the Tintoretto Last Supper, but how different these Venetian painters are from what we are used in the rest of Italy, certainly a lot less calm.

We have lunch sitting outside at a new trattoria/winebar on the Campo San Barnaba called Oniga. The meal is very pleasant--I have the set lunch which includes a saute of clams and mussels followed by a grilled orata with polenta--both dishes delicious. Diana has a large salad (insalatone) with mortadella (they are somehow out of the advertised prosciutto). After lunch, the heat takes its toll and we take a vaparetto back to the hotel. (A welcome innovation on the vaparetti is that you can now buy tickets on the boat if you don't have one. Part of the reason for this is that fewer vaparetto stops have ticket sellers and there are no ticket machines. We haven't yet purchased a daily or three day pass because it is hard to judge how frequently we will be taking the vaparetti and whether it makes sense from a cost point of view.)

The boat is again crowded (there are definitely a lot of tourists in Venice) and the boat trips on the Grand Canal don't provide the same sense of enjoyment that I had remembered from previous trips.

Back at the hotel, we relax and try to escape the heat. I sit on the balcony and watch the passing scene on the Campo, children playing, people having aperitifs at the restaurant below our room, tourists coming and going for the tours of the synagogues and the museum, and locals sitting on the benches and talking to their neighbors. Later in the afternoon, we sit at the same restaurant/bar below our balcony and have some dessert. I head off for a short walk in the neighborhood, trying to stay in the shade whenever possible. I am surprised at how Venetian the neighborhood of Cannaregio is, especially as you walk in the areas north of the ghetto. It is filled with bars with locals sitting around and small restaurants that serve the neighborhood. Some restaurants that are appealing to tourists have opened in the area, but they don't appear to be changing the local feel of the area.

Tonight we are having dinner with our Peace Corps friends whom we had seen in Ravenna as well as with two friends of theirs who shared their villa in Tuscany the previous week and another Peace Corps friend who came down from Vienna to see the Lewises. Dinner is at a restaurant in our neighborhood, Vini di Giglio. Dinner is a lot of fun...there is lots of joking and reminiscing and talking about Italy. The food is not bad....the highlight dishes are a grilled eel and a fried cheese with polenta appetizer. The waitress maintained a good humor with us throughout the evening which included a large amount of delicious prosecco and didn't finish until past midnight. We have a relatively short walk home...luckily--because it is has been a long day.

One thing we learned today is that the canals do smell sometimes when the temperature is high....in the restaurant for dinner, we have to close the window because of the odor coming from the canal outside. But we also feel that Venice is still magical and a very unique destination.

Tomorrow we have planned an outing to the island of Torcello with our Peace Corps friends.

Day 8: Ravenna-Venice

2005-05-24T16:42:00.000+02:00

Before we leave Ravenna, we make another swing through town, buying some cherries at the market and visiting the basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, where the remains of the same Sant'Apollinare from Classe (where we visited yesterday), were moved in the 9th century. The church has another of the distinctive tall cylindrical bell towers that are the Ravenna style. The very fine mosaics line the walls above the rows of Greek columns on either side of the church and portray two long processions--women on one side, men on the other. The women's procession is led by colorful scenes of the Three Magi offering gifts to Mary. The men's procession of saints, martyrs and church elders lead to a Jesus seated on a throne. At the other end of the men's procession is a detailed picture of Theodoric's palace. Additional colorful portraits fill the spaces above the procession. The mosaics are again amazingly colorful and many of the figures have very distinctive features.

Our last stop is to be what one of the guidebooks describe as the biggest surprise in Ravenna, the mosaics in the chapel of the Oratorio of Sant'Andrea located in the museum of the Archbishop's Palace. We pause at Dante's tomb; he is buried in Ravenna after having visited almost every town in Italy after his exile from Florence. After a long walk (a little longer than necessary due to a mapreader's error), we reach the palace, climb the stairs and find the chapel closed for repairs--"in restauro". Outside the cathedral, we encounter a large group of lost German students on a day trip from Rimini. They ask us "where the town is" and we lead them toward the centro and give them our map.

Before we check out, we have a nice conversation with one of the hotel staff. When I remark about the Ravenna traffic patterns begin difficult, she says that even Ravenna residents are mystified by them and have to think carefully before making the shortest trips by car.

A word about Ravenna...in spite of the traffic difficulties, the town is very attractive with very nice pedestrian streets and handsome piazze. And the mosaics are in a class by themselves....I think they are definitely worth a detour and that Ravenna deserves to be on a "short list" of Italian destinations.

En route to Venice, we stop in Comacchio for lunch. Comacchio is somewhat deserted old fishing town that used to be quite wealthy from the salt trade that was centered here. It is in the middle of the Po Delta and surrounded by swamps and marshes; it is well known for its eels--you see nets everywhere ready to dip into the canals to harvest them. The town is criss-crossed with canals (with many decoy ducks floating in the water) and has one very distinctive bridge--the Treponti--that arches over the junction of two canals.

We have a very nice lunch at a local trattoria--Guilia and Vasco--where I have a large serving of delicious cherrystone sized clams in a wine broth and rich grilled eel, very meaty and tasty. Diana has another great melon with prosciutto and a perfectly prepared plate of ravioli with butter and sage.

We stop for gas at a self-service gas station. We have avoided self-service since our unfortunate experience in Pienza many years ago when we lost Lire 50.000 at the pump. But we figure that we are now experienced Italy hands so we try again. However, we are no more successful...the money is inserted and the proper pump selected..but no gas comes out. Luckily this time, when Diana asks for help, the boss peels off a Euro 20.00 note and returns it to her. I suspect that this time it is the pump that is malfunctioning. We fill up at a non-self service gas station up the road.

We make one more stop to visit the large Abbey of Pomposa just north of Pomposa. This was a rich abbey in the 11th and 12th century, largely due to the salt trade. A shift in course of the Po River left the community in a malarial swampland and its prosperity ended. But the abbey remained....there is a large campanile, a large church covered with a magnificent floor and 14th century frescoes covering the walls, including a frightening Last Judgment and scenes from both the New and Old Testament, including a very distinctive Last Supper, with the diners seated at a circular table. This was also the home to the monk Guido d'Arezzo, who is credited with inventing the modern musical scale here in the 11th century.

Once past Chioggia, the road skirts the lagoon before arriving in Mestre, the industrial city at the causeway to Venice. We have to return our car at the Piazzale Roma, the last place cars can go in Venice. We stop at a gas station just at the end of the causeway to top off the gas tank.) We see the car rental offices lined up in the large parking lot building but a drop off area is not apparent. We make a swing aroung the Piazzale and pull up in front of the parking lot exit and Diana goes to the Europcar office to ask where to leave the car. Apparently, the procedure is to leave the car on the street below the offices. We park, unload the car, finish the paperwork and drag our luggage across the busy street to the vaparetto docks. We buy tickets (Euro 3.50 per person plus Euro 3.50 for the luggage--a total of Euro 14.00) and find the right landing for the vaparetto that goes to the Cannaregio canal and the Guglie stop (nearest to the Ghetto where we are staying). We have to fight our way on board the vaparetto when it arrives and repeat the process to get off when it stops at Guglie five minutes later. From there it is a three minute walk to the hotel--the Locanda del Ghetto--and there is luckily only one bridge that we have to negotiate with our luggage.

The hotel is located on the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo (the older and larger of the squares in the Ghetto neighborhood). It is a large campo ringed with five and six story high apartment buildings. There is also a retirement home run by the Jewish community, three 16th century synagogues plus the museum, a few shops--mostly Jewish-oriented, one restaurant, the Chabad house of the Lubavitcher community as well as their school and the hotel. There are trees in the campo, a fountain with running water, and benches. Another bridge leads out of the ghetto to the north. Our room at the hotel has a balcony so we will be able to watch all the comings and goings in the Campo.

We unpack and get settled, I test out the internet connection (which is excellent) and we get ready to go out for dinner. We have been invited to dinner by Howard Fitzpatrick and Laurie Graham. Howard is an American who is a guide that I often use for clients in Venice and his wife Laurie is a British novelist. After a stop to buy some flowers, we take a vaparetto down the Grand Canal to get to their apartment (they live near the Frari church) and find the address without too much difficulty. They live in the top floor of a grand palazzo in a rented apartment...they have magnificent views over Venice from their "altana" which is a roof platform common in Venice. Dinner is delicious and the evening is very pleasant....it is great to be able to get inside a Venetian home and we all get along well.

It is almost midnight when we leave and walk back to the hotel.....the route to the railroad station (where we cross the closest of the three bridges over the Grand Canal) is well marked forturnately because it would be easy to lose your way in the dark narrow streets of Venice. The campo is quiet and deserted when we finally arrive (it is 1:00 am) and we are quickly asleep.

Day 7: Ravenna

2005-05-23T17:38:00.000+02:00

Rain reappears this morning. After breakfasting with our friends who are off to Ferrara, we grab umbrellas and walk in a steady drizzle to the Basilica of San Vitale. San Vitale is a 6th century church that contains spectacular mosaics from the the glory days of Ravenna, when it was the seat of the government for the western part of the Roman Empire. The mosaics cover almost every available surface in the front of the church and the colors and the detail are stunningly beautiful. Even on a cloudy days, the biblical scenes, the portraits of the apostles and other historical figures and the large mosaic of Christ overseeing it all are vibrant and fascinating. And the floors are amazing also....beautiful designs that cover virtually the whole church. We have a book that identifies and describes the different mosaics which helps me avoid the sense of frustration I sometimes feel when visiting churches and museums.

By the time we leave the basilica, the rain has stopped and the sun is shining again. The next stop is the Mausoleum of Galla Placida, the daughter of Theodosius the Great, the last ruler of the united Roman Empire and a woman involved in all types of intrigue and adventure . Her mausoleum is a small building.....dark and dimly lit...but the ceiling and walls are decorated with beautiful mosaic designs and rich colors as well as portraits of the Apostles and two biblical scenes..one of a young, beardless Christ with a flock of sheep and another of St. Lawrence.

Leaving the mausoleum, we stroll through the town and stop at the covered market, where we window shop and eventually buy some cherries, which are now in season. I am frustrated in Italian markets because I like to pick out my produce piece by piece which is not allowed in Italy. So the cherries, while good, aren't as high a quality as they might have been if I could have hand selected each piece. Our last stop for the morning is the Neonian Baptistery, next to Ravenna's Duomo. The mosaics in this building, which was built over a Roman bath complex, are also very well preserved and depict the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River (similar to the scene in the Arian Baptistery that we visited yesterday) as well as portraits of the Apostles . The baptismal font in the center of the building is from the 13th century and is large enough to fully immerse adults.

We head back to the hotel and get the car; our Swedish friend Ulf (we had met him in 1994 while waiting to buy tickets in Pompeii and have kept in touch since then) is taking the train from Faenza to spend the afternoon with us in Ravenna and we are going to the train station to pick him up. We have a nice lunch sitting outside at La Gardela (we had eaten there in 1994)--a very nice risotto with asparagus and grilled sausages for me, a less successful risotto with vegetables and a very good veal scallopini for Ulf. Diana's meal is unremembered right now. We have a nice local white from the hills outside Faenza and enjoy a relaxing, friendly meal.

After lunch, we get in the car and head out for another basilica just outside town on the road to Rimini....Sant'Apollonaire in Classe. We are also on the lookout for a place to buy a small ceramic plant holder that Ulf wants to bring back to Sweden. The basilica of Sant'Apollonaire is large and quite austere but very well lit. The large mosaic that fills the apse is an allegorical vision of the transfiguration of Christ....the dominant color of the Mediterranean landscape is a soft green and but there is a remarkable cross set in a blue circle. There is a lot to see--more biblical scenes and the portraits of important church figures, graceful Greek columns, etc. but the soft colors and designs in the apse command most of the attention.

On the way back to Ravenna, we stop at a flower shop but they don't have exactly what Ulf is looking for.....we are directed to a nursey on the road to Porta Marina. I guess "directed" is too strong a word--we are pointed in a direction but get no specifics...name or address or telephone number, except that it is "not too far away". In any case, we reach the beach without passing anything that looks like a nursery. However, as we are heading back to Ravenna, Diana notices a building supply place with terra cotta urns on display. We pull in and inquire, the staff pulls out catalogs and searches the computer, and Ulf is given a choice of several pieces. The ceramic plant holder is wrapped and boxed, everyone shakes hands and we are on our way back to Ravenna.

Our plan is to drive back to the center of town, stroll around for a while, perhaps sit in a cafe and have a drink and then take Ulf back to the train station. The plan is foiled by the extremely devious and frustrating Ravenna traffic plan which apparently won't let cars reach the center of town. Whenever I think I am heading in the right direction, we invariably reach an intersection where all but the one street is one way against us and we are forced to circle back to try another route to the center. After four or five false starts, I park and we walk the last ten minutes to reach the center.

We walk through the historic center of Ravenna for about a half hour and then head back to the car to drive back to the station. Since we had driven there earlier in the day, I don't expect to have any problem getting there. However, whenever we get in sight of the station, the road we are driving on decides to change direction and send us the opposite way. We finally do reach the station, after seemingly circling it for a half hour and almost making a complete circuit around Ravenna. We say good bye to Ulf and head back....again taking a very roundabout and frustrating route to reach the parking lot close to the hotel.

We decide to eat in a restaurant very close to the hotel (no more car adventures this day); Vecchia Ravenna is on the next street. It is a pretty, well lit trattoria with very few customers on this Monday night. The staff is friendly and we eat very well and pay very little. Diana has the menu of the day, highlighted by a delicate yet very flavorful risotto with four cheeses and while I have lasagne with meat sauce (very nice but not as good as Diana's risotto) and a beautifully cooked rana pescatrice (monkfish) delicious roast potatoes and a not very good dish of spinach. With a half liter of house wine, the bill came to about Euro 40.00 (a real bargain).

It is a short walk back to the hotel through deserted streets. Tomorrow we are off to Venice.