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Here's the first Italy post, and I may comment more later, plus there will be stuff at my other blogs when I get the photos sorted out. I'll put the quick where-we-went-when under a cut in a moment. But first - we had this discussion on our last evening, as we do at some point on nearly every trip we take, about conflicting theories of vacation/holiday-taking, and how to hit a happy medium between rushing around to see everything that will possibly fit and just sitting around with a good book in a pretty place. J's idea of a proper vacation leans more toward the former, so when he plans trips we move around a lot and pack the days pretty full. I am sympathetic toward the see-everything! viewpoint, and I certainly don't regret much if anything of what we did, but I am exhausted and have much to do coming up, so there's that.
There is so much to see in the world, and so little time to do it in, so when you have an opportunity such as this one it's probably best to not miss out - but we always end up saying that "when we come back" (which we never do, because there are other places to see) we will just rent a house or apartment for a week so that we can get to know a place. But even then it would be considered a base camp from which to explore in all directions, and I would keep arguing for one day of just holding still, and not getting it (or getting it alone while the others saw something I'd regret missing). Doing too much, especially over a longer vacation, makes the end part of the trip rather blurry, and the first part vanishingly distant, and all the churches and views tend to blend together after a while - I have a theory that you need to see something at least three times before you come anywhere close to understanding it, which makes the usual tourist itinerary pretty useless - but again, who has time to go back over and over? I don't know what the solution to this is, except for larger travel budgets and more free time, and yeah, it screams First World Problem, so onwards.
This is off the top of my insufficient memory and summarizes much:
Monday/Tuesday: Flew via Frankfurt to Venice, on the red-eye so we were pretty bushed on arrival, but once we'd slept we were on Italian time (it works much better in that direction than in the coming-home one *yawns*). Took the vaporetto (water bus) to the stop closest to our hotel and walked (getting slightly lost but not irreparably so). Nice small hotel on a quiet non-touristy street in the Dorsoduro sestiere. Ate at a pizzeria in the nearest campo, walked around a lot to stay awake, and then crashed.
Wednesday: Did the obligatory pass through Piazza San Marco (crowds and puddles) and then had a lovely guided tour (in English, so Americans, Brits and Australians, with a Venetian leader) of the Cannaregio's cicchetti bars (think standing-up tapas, with lots of wine). It was the only guided tour we did on the trip (J also does not tend to plan those in) but great fun. Walked around some more afterwards (I was a bit tipsy, so possibly more like lurching to begin with). Saw some things. Spent as much time as possible away from tourist crowds, which is surprisingly easy (just get off the main routes and wander). Dinner at hotel restaurant.
Thursday: Went to the Biennale Architettura, and in the evening attended a sort of chamber performance of "La Traviata" in an old palazzo, only the three main characters singing, and each act in a different room. Very intimate, the audience made to feel part of the action at times (Violetta handed me a glass of champagne). Dinner at pizzeria again. (It was a nice pizzeria with outdoor campo seating (except when it rained, as it did this time) and views of the glowy flying things that vendors try to sell you in every open public space. We ate at a lot of places like this, as well as a few really nice restaurants. There is extremely little bad food in Italy.)
Friday: Left Venice by local train to Padua. A few hours there; I did the Botanic Gardens while J and N went to a church, then lunch, and back on the train for Rome. Got ridiculously lost trying to find our hotel because we didn't need a taxi and J knew exactly where to go. Too tired for dinner after walking five times as far as we needed to pulling luggage. P arrived late from Arezzo and we went to bed on Roman weekend time, which was just as well considering the street noise. Lovely suite though.
Saturday: Saw many bits of Rome, none in great depth. Bought pasta and vegetables at the Campo di Fiori and made lunch in our suite (cooking while on vacation makes me feel 100% more human). Had Indian food for dinner, because already slightly tired of Italian and the restaurant was convenient. Walked down to the Colosseum afterwards - closed, of course, but lovely outside at night.
Sunday: Tried to do laundry but the machine wouldn't spin; concierge (or perhaps he was the owner) took the clothes to his mother's to finish then brought them back: many gold stars. Clothesline outside the window; P hung them up because staying home needing a break. The rest of us took the Metro and a crowded bus to Tivoli; saw gardens and Villa d'Este. Dinner at "the best pizzeria in Roma": possibly true.
Monday: Contrasts in train transport as we took first class to Napoli and then the sardine-tin Circumvesuviana to Sorrento. It was rush hour, and it's a commuter train, so I'm not surprised at the crowding, but it is no fun with luggage. Might splurge on the boat if we do it again. Nice views of Vesuvius when you could see them. Hotel (which we also walked to, with less getting lost but more danger to life and limb) was above the town with little cabins (very little, but we all just fit) and many subtropical plants.
(Side note: we spent the most time in Sorrento (four days, more or less) because it was a good base to see things from; it would, just saying, also be a good place to sit still and enjoy the views and weather. There is some guilty comfort in the fact that it caters toward English-speaking tourists (originally Brits, now quite a few Americans too, and as long as you understand "lift" and "aubergine" and so forth you are all set); not that the other places we went didn't have English-speaking Italians in large numbers, but we had to exercise less Italian there than anywhere else. It is gaudily touristy, and too full of lemon-themed kitsch, but we had some of our best meals there, mostly on the side streets.)
Tuesday: Boat to Amalfi, the other side of the peninsula. Actually found a place that would do take-away sandwiches (this is unusual in Italy, as far as we discovered) and set off on a hike that just about killed me, up an absurd number of steps to Ravello (which sounds like it should be a lovely little isolated town and turns out to be just as full of tourists as Amalfi, the vast majority of whom took the bus). I am not in fantastic shape, I admit (especially recently with the knee), but usually I do not stop for breath every ten steps while ascending, and it wasn't far above sea level. I am blaming the sirocco (there was a lot of haze in the atmosphere). Anyway, we got there, and then walked further to see the Villa Cimbrone, where we had very expensive cocktails (you pay for the view) and walked through the gardens, and I will certainly be posting photos. Bus back to Amalfi, quick dinner, bus back to Sorrento. Very very narrow and curving roads by the side of cliffs: the kind of terror that is fun once you assure yourself that these bus drivers are extremely skilled. (Italian traffic and its variations deserve their own lengthy post.)
Wednesday: Back on the Circumvesuviana to Pompeii. Hot and tiring but of course worth seeing. If we did anything else that day I can't recall what. Oh, shopping, I guess. Wonderful dinner in tiny trattoria.
Thursday: P went to Napoli and the rest of us to Capri. Bus up to Anacapri, lunch at a place with enormous pepper grinders, and I bought a too-expensive sun hat (I had left my other hat in Ravello, which I managed to explain in terrible Italian to the woman in the shop: "Classico, classico," she said). Then we took the chair lift up to Monte Solaro, which is exhilarating with amazing views (including of people's gardens as you go right over them) and then back down, and the bus down again. We tried to walk to a Roman ruin but were informed that it was closed for the day, and instead went to a decayed villa formerly owned by a French pederast poet (it just kind of happened, which is possibly what he said too), and then back to the harbor, and the boat back, and we all met up at the Sorrento harbor where there are kittens to whom people feed pasta, and had another cocktail and another nice dinner.
Friday: train back to Napoli, then to Florence; taxi to car rental place; car out of the city to (after several wrong turns and the acquiring of a map) to Gaiole in Chianti, where we had (via AirBNB) the ground floor of a lovely house that belonged to an ancient wine-making family whose patriarch was traveling to China (for the purposes of selling wine). Stopped at a supermarket on the way and bought dinner supplies; we ate at home for all meals that weekend except lunches.
Saturday: To San Gimignano, which is the place with all the towers. Full of tourists, but nice to walk around in (though I was so tired by this point that I didn't absorb much). This was the only stop we managed that day, which was just as well.
Sunday: To Arrezzo, which is where P has been studying. He showed us around, from the villa outside of town where they live, down into the center of the old walled city. Very lively town; lots of street markets, lots of parks, lots of energy. Left him at school and drove back to Gaiole.
Monday: Packed up and drove to Florence, where after returning the car we had the afternoon to "do" the city. Luckily it's not too big. All the major museums are closed on Mondays, so we will just have to return someday. Rescheduled flight after finding out about the pilots' strike. Dinner at nice restaurant to celebrate the end of the trip.
Tuesday: Breakfast, to the airport, home.
I should do later posts on things like food and drink, which do tend to be important to us, and perhaps on how it feels to be a tourist in a country not one's own, or the combination of the two (I hope that if fellow diners occasionally regarded us as the loud Americans drinking too much, at least we were the loud Americans drinking too much and discussing etymology, but really we don't tend to be loud, and we say grazie a lot). And I think sorting out the photos will help me isolate moments that were particularly meaningful (though they will not necessarily coincide with the moments during which I took photos). I do know that any vision I possessed of Italy as monolithic (figuratively, and literally as well) has now been erased, not that I ever really thought it was all one place. I would like to see more places within it, and to return to places we touched on; we'll see if that happens.
If I had to pick one return trip, I'd probably be practical and say Florence, since we visited there so briefly, and maybe more time in the Tuscan countryside as well, especially if I had a thematic itinerary (like, you know, wine. Or agriculture in general). The visuals there are astonishing, particularly since they are so iconic and familiar from painting and photography, but the first time you pull over on a hilltop and look out at the sinking sun glinting across the green curves and the terracotta roofs and the geometric patterns of vineyard and olive plantation, it's nearly impossible to recognize what you're seeing as real. So I'd like to shake it a bit and force it to say something (I'd have to know Italian better, of course).
But of everywhere we went, my heart belongs to Venice. In part because it was the first place we went, but also because I loved so much the maze of tiny streets and the lack of any wheeled traffic beyond barrows; the watery orientation must call up something in my maritime roots, and every use of the canals and lagoons was charming to me, from public transport to tourist gondolas to construction deliveries. I wouldn't want to live there (not enough space for gardens, plus expensive and crumbling) but I'd love to go back and spend time absorbing atmosphere and water metaphors, and to write something about it.
There is so much to see in the world, and so little time to do it in, so when you have an opportunity such as this one it's probably best to not miss out - but we always end up saying that "when we come back" (which we never do, because there are other places to see) we will just rent a house or apartment for a week so that we can get to know a place. But even then it would be considered a base camp from which to explore in all directions, and I would keep arguing for one day of just holding still, and not getting it (or getting it alone while the others saw something I'd regret missing). Doing too much, especially over a longer vacation, makes the end part of the trip rather blurry, and the first part vanishingly distant, and all the churches and views tend to blend together after a while - I have a theory that you need to see something at least three times before you come anywhere close to understanding it, which makes the usual tourist itinerary pretty useless - but again, who has time to go back over and over? I don't know what the solution to this is, except for larger travel budgets and more free time, and yeah, it screams First World Problem, so onwards.
This is off the top of my insufficient memory and summarizes much:
Monday/Tuesday: Flew via Frankfurt to Venice, on the red-eye so we were pretty bushed on arrival, but once we'd slept we were on Italian time (it works much better in that direction than in the coming-home one *yawns*). Took the vaporetto (water bus) to the stop closest to our hotel and walked (getting slightly lost but not irreparably so). Nice small hotel on a quiet non-touristy street in the Dorsoduro sestiere. Ate at a pizzeria in the nearest campo, walked around a lot to stay awake, and then crashed.
Wednesday: Did the obligatory pass through Piazza San Marco (crowds and puddles) and then had a lovely guided tour (in English, so Americans, Brits and Australians, with a Venetian leader) of the Cannaregio's cicchetti bars (think standing-up tapas, with lots of wine). It was the only guided tour we did on the trip (J also does not tend to plan those in) but great fun. Walked around some more afterwards (I was a bit tipsy, so possibly more like lurching to begin with). Saw some things. Spent as much time as possible away from tourist crowds, which is surprisingly easy (just get off the main routes and wander). Dinner at hotel restaurant.
Thursday: Went to the Biennale Architettura, and in the evening attended a sort of chamber performance of "La Traviata" in an old palazzo, only the three main characters singing, and each act in a different room. Very intimate, the audience made to feel part of the action at times (Violetta handed me a glass of champagne). Dinner at pizzeria again. (It was a nice pizzeria with outdoor campo seating (except when it rained, as it did this time) and views of the glowy flying things that vendors try to sell you in every open public space. We ate at a lot of places like this, as well as a few really nice restaurants. There is extremely little bad food in Italy.)
Friday: Left Venice by local train to Padua. A few hours there; I did the Botanic Gardens while J and N went to a church, then lunch, and back on the train for Rome. Got ridiculously lost trying to find our hotel because we didn't need a taxi and J knew exactly where to go. Too tired for dinner after walking five times as far as we needed to pulling luggage. P arrived late from Arezzo and we went to bed on Roman weekend time, which was just as well considering the street noise. Lovely suite though.
Saturday: Saw many bits of Rome, none in great depth. Bought pasta and vegetables at the Campo di Fiori and made lunch in our suite (cooking while on vacation makes me feel 100% more human). Had Indian food for dinner, because already slightly tired of Italian and the restaurant was convenient. Walked down to the Colosseum afterwards - closed, of course, but lovely outside at night.
Sunday: Tried to do laundry but the machine wouldn't spin; concierge (or perhaps he was the owner) took the clothes to his mother's to finish then brought them back: many gold stars. Clothesline outside the window; P hung them up because staying home needing a break. The rest of us took the Metro and a crowded bus to Tivoli; saw gardens and Villa d'Este. Dinner at "the best pizzeria in Roma": possibly true.
Monday: Contrasts in train transport as we took first class to Napoli and then the sardine-tin Circumvesuviana to Sorrento. It was rush hour, and it's a commuter train, so I'm not surprised at the crowding, but it is no fun with luggage. Might splurge on the boat if we do it again. Nice views of Vesuvius when you could see them. Hotel (which we also walked to, with less getting lost but more danger to life and limb) was above the town with little cabins (very little, but we all just fit) and many subtropical plants.
(Side note: we spent the most time in Sorrento (four days, more or less) because it was a good base to see things from; it would, just saying, also be a good place to sit still and enjoy the views and weather. There is some guilty comfort in the fact that it caters toward English-speaking tourists (originally Brits, now quite a few Americans too, and as long as you understand "lift" and "aubergine" and so forth you are all set); not that the other places we went didn't have English-speaking Italians in large numbers, but we had to exercise less Italian there than anywhere else. It is gaudily touristy, and too full of lemon-themed kitsch, but we had some of our best meals there, mostly on the side streets.)
Tuesday: Boat to Amalfi, the other side of the peninsula. Actually found a place that would do take-away sandwiches (this is unusual in Italy, as far as we discovered) and set off on a hike that just about killed me, up an absurd number of steps to Ravello (which sounds like it should be a lovely little isolated town and turns out to be just as full of tourists as Amalfi, the vast majority of whom took the bus). I am not in fantastic shape, I admit (especially recently with the knee), but usually I do not stop for breath every ten steps while ascending, and it wasn't far above sea level. I am blaming the sirocco (there was a lot of haze in the atmosphere). Anyway, we got there, and then walked further to see the Villa Cimbrone, where we had very expensive cocktails (you pay for the view) and walked through the gardens, and I will certainly be posting photos. Bus back to Amalfi, quick dinner, bus back to Sorrento. Very very narrow and curving roads by the side of cliffs: the kind of terror that is fun once you assure yourself that these bus drivers are extremely skilled. (Italian traffic and its variations deserve their own lengthy post.)
Wednesday: Back on the Circumvesuviana to Pompeii. Hot and tiring but of course worth seeing. If we did anything else that day I can't recall what. Oh, shopping, I guess. Wonderful dinner in tiny trattoria.
Thursday: P went to Napoli and the rest of us to Capri. Bus up to Anacapri, lunch at a place with enormous pepper grinders, and I bought a too-expensive sun hat (I had left my other hat in Ravello, which I managed to explain in terrible Italian to the woman in the shop: "Classico, classico," she said). Then we took the chair lift up to Monte Solaro, which is exhilarating with amazing views (including of people's gardens as you go right over them) and then back down, and the bus down again. We tried to walk to a Roman ruin but were informed that it was closed for the day, and instead went to a decayed villa formerly owned by a French pederast poet (it just kind of happened, which is possibly what he said too), and then back to the harbor, and the boat back, and we all met up at the Sorrento harbor where there are kittens to whom people feed pasta, and had another cocktail and another nice dinner.
Friday: train back to Napoli, then to Florence; taxi to car rental place; car out of the city to (after several wrong turns and the acquiring of a map) to Gaiole in Chianti, where we had (via AirBNB) the ground floor of a lovely house that belonged to an ancient wine-making family whose patriarch was traveling to China (for the purposes of selling wine). Stopped at a supermarket on the way and bought dinner supplies; we ate at home for all meals that weekend except lunches.
Saturday: To San Gimignano, which is the place with all the towers. Full of tourists, but nice to walk around in (though I was so tired by this point that I didn't absorb much). This was the only stop we managed that day, which was just as well.
Sunday: To Arrezzo, which is where P has been studying. He showed us around, from the villa outside of town where they live, down into the center of the old walled city. Very lively town; lots of street markets, lots of parks, lots of energy. Left him at school and drove back to Gaiole.
Monday: Packed up and drove to Florence, where after returning the car we had the afternoon to "do" the city. Luckily it's not too big. All the major museums are closed on Mondays, so we will just have to return someday. Rescheduled flight after finding out about the pilots' strike. Dinner at nice restaurant to celebrate the end of the trip.
Tuesday: Breakfast, to the airport, home.
I should do later posts on things like food and drink, which do tend to be important to us, and perhaps on how it feels to be a tourist in a country not one's own, or the combination of the two (I hope that if fellow diners occasionally regarded us as the loud Americans drinking too much, at least we were the loud Americans drinking too much and discussing etymology, but really we don't tend to be loud, and we say grazie a lot). And I think sorting out the photos will help me isolate moments that were particularly meaningful (though they will not necessarily coincide with the moments during which I took photos). I do know that any vision I possessed of Italy as monolithic (figuratively, and literally as well) has now been erased, not that I ever really thought it was all one place. I would like to see more places within it, and to return to places we touched on; we'll see if that happens.
If I had to pick one return trip, I'd probably be practical and say Florence, since we visited there so briefly, and maybe more time in the Tuscan countryside as well, especially if I had a thematic itinerary (like, you know, wine. Or agriculture in general). The visuals there are astonishing, particularly since they are so iconic and familiar from painting and photography, but the first time you pull over on a hilltop and look out at the sinking sun glinting across the green curves and the terracotta roofs and the geometric patterns of vineyard and olive plantation, it's nearly impossible to recognize what you're seeing as real. So I'd like to shake it a bit and force it to say something (I'd have to know Italian better, of course).
But of everywhere we went, my heart belongs to Venice. In part because it was the first place we went, but also because I loved so much the maze of tiny streets and the lack of any wheeled traffic beyond barrows; the watery orientation must call up something in my maritime roots, and every use of the canals and lagoons was charming to me, from public transport to tourist gondolas to construction deliveries. I wouldn't want to live there (not enough space for gardens, plus expensive and crumbling) but I'd love to go back and spend time absorbing atmosphere and water metaphors, and to write something about it.
