K. a good friend
There's no cure like travel to help you unravel
the worries of living today.
When the poor brain is cracking there's nothing like packing
a suitcase and sailing away.
Take a run around Vienna, Granada, Ravenna, Sienna and then around Rome.
Have a high time, a low time and in no time you'll be singing "Home Sweet Home".
Cole Porter
It was my great good fortune to travel with my sister Sally and a small symphony to Italy. That, ladies and gentlemen, could be my travel log in a nutshell, however I would like to add a few notes on why travel is valuable to me. Travel creates an opening in the brain that wasn't there before, that's left me in a state of wonderment that hopefully lasts longer than the jet lag.
I have been home for several days now and after some marathon sleeping feel less stupid each day. I did get enough sleep on the trip but zero on the plane ride home. I've always said, "I don't sleep on moving vehicles" and this still holds true for the jets but the long bus tour through Italy made a liar out of me.
Here's an example: we went out for our first dinner with our tour group in Rome in our big air conditioned bus. Dinner was fun although the food was only OK and the wine mediocre. On the ride home to the hotel, Sally had to keep waking me up, "Susan, there's the Spanish Steps", "O, yeah great" and I'd promptly fall back to sleep. This peculiar behavior [for me] continued on and off throughout the entire 16 day trip. I would read a bit, look out the window to the mostly beautiful scenery and nod off for a half hour or so. Drooling? Snoring? I'm not sure, everyone was so kind.
Everywhere is within walking distance if you've got the time.
Steven Wright
Another factor in sleeping well at night and during the day was the incredible amount of walking we did. I actually lost weight on the trip and almost every day I had a gelato for lunch. Could this be the basis for a new diet craze? "The 100 degrees, walking and gelato diet", you heard it here first.
As I said, our tour started off in Rome yes, 100 degrees in the shade. And we walked everywhere despite the heat. First stop was to the Sistine Chapel, then over to St. Peter's Basilica, finally around the grounds of the Colosseum. I had a book about the Sistine Chapel that I studied prior to this trip, all of the glossy beautiful pictures of every room and the ceiling that Michelangelo spent years painting [on his back for the love of God] in detail and close up. Well, here comes the heretical statement and you might want to close your eyes, I was disappointed. Seems that for me because I couldn't beam myself up close and personal to the fresco's, I felt cheated. Dumb but true. So studying backfired for me. Then we walked over to St. Peter's and all of that disappointment fell away. I was the humble awestruck 14th century peasant walking into a world of grandeur. The Basilica is so immense that at one point our guide pointed up to a balcony in the dome and said, "you see those creatures up there that look like birds?" "Yes" we all said. "Those are people." Took my breath away, all of the mosaics, the entire enormous cathedral, and the thought of all those laborers, all of the artists devoting their life to making this grand statement a glorious one, for the love of God. [Now it could have been for the pay check but I would prefer to keep things lofty.] On we trudged to the Colosseum, first in the bus then on foot. It's hard to love the Colosseum when your only thoughts are "where exactly is the toilet, can I possibly get some water, my hip hurts, are human beings meant for slow roasting?" The ruins were inspirational, but the heat dreadful. I felt like a spoiled 'whiny baby pee pants', to quote a sage.
Sally and I had the same idea after seeing the grand sites and we went back to the hotel and for 10 Euros went swimming [I would have paid 20]. The pool was grand, Olympic sized and you would expect, as we did, that it would be crowded on this blistering day. Granted there were many Italians sunbathing [!] but we were the only people swimming besides one little girl. What makes this more remarkable was with only the three of us in the pool Sal and I, both swimming back stroke, managed to bonk heads. That's talent for you. Embarrassing, but we roared with our hearty American laughter.
That night we went to a castle for dinner and joined many other tour groups. They had a good tenor, a DJ and an accordion player who serenaded the tables. Just about all of the young people at one of the tables got up to do the "chicken dance" which may be known to all of you, a revelation to me. Very spirited and cute. Then they played "I Will Survive" and the entire group of women of a certain age joined in the festivity and we showed those young things how dancing never dies, it just thrives with age. I danced my hip off.
En route home from this wonderful night we stopped off at a view point that overlooked all of Rome in it's splendor at night. The luscious warmth had thousands out, tourists and the locals-- all of us relishing the sparkle that a hot summer night can deliver. This 'out at night' was to be repeated in every city we visited, it was electric and dazzling. People enjoying each other and the summer.
We left Rome for Firenza and stopped for pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The most amusing sight was nearly everyone taking the exact same picture: pretending to hold up the tower. No matter if they were Japanese, Chinese, French, Polynesian, all had the same idea and it was funnier to watch them than to do this ourselves. The day was still so hot so we welcomed the air conditioned bus and went on to Firenza.
Lucky for us we got to stay in a hotel on the Plazza Dell D'Annunziato close to the heart of the city. That night the orchestra looking for a place to practice eventually went outside to practice on the plazza. The night was perfect, a half moon, a slight breeze and the music of Mozart, Faure, Benjamin Britten, Hayden outdoors was nothing short of magical. Not only were we, the people on the tour enchanted but quite a large crowd of locals gathered. Someone remarked, "it's sad that classical music has become only for the rich people, it's always played in halls indoors for those who can pay." The people who came were enraptured and I wanted the night to go on and on.
The next day we toured all of Firenza's museums: Uffizi, the Galleria, etc. but my favorite for sheer sweetness was the San Marco museum where Fra Angelico painted with such love, frescos in each monk's cell.
Off to Milano which was not great for these reasons: the tour guide had an annoying voice and I thought we were going to see inside the La Scala Opera house but no, just the exterior. What thrill is that? I wanted to breathe in Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti. Then an elderly gentleman on our bus that I was sure had failing capacities, got lost and we all spent an hour searching for him. Not fun, and did I mention it was hot? Turns out the people from the other bus happened upon him and said, "why aren't you with your tour group?" To which he answered, "what tour group?" They brought him back to our bus. I couldn't believe that the people on this tour who'd know him from previous tours couldn't accept that he was slipping. One person even suggested "we all take turns babysitting him". "No," I said, "I didn't pay all this money to take care of someone who should have a paid companion." Thankfully we got going and went to Lugano for a quick look at the lovely lake and put our tootsies in the water. That night we ended up at Lake Maggoire for the best meal of the trip, a small trattoria down the street from our fancy 5 Star hotel. Sal and I were indeed fortunate to get a room with a view of the Lake. The weather was cooperative and Sal and I opted to swim [duh] in the pool and dine al fresco with items from the grocery. This was a wonderful day capped by sharing a bottle of excellent Sicilian wine [Mr. G will be so disappointed that I can't remembering the name...] with two ladies of the excellent Mother-daughter duos on the trip. We had much in common and they shared a philosophy which was important and fun. They were acute observers of personalities and rather than being critical they played at "what would so and so say, what would so and so do?" Really gave me a new perspective of the people that I was being judgemental about. I grew to love almost everyone on the tour that I spent any time at all with and it was fun to internally dialogue and imagine "what would they do/say?"
Thankfully the next day, and the only day of the entire trip it was raining and I made an unfortunate fashion choice and wore long acrylic pants and a black top because I thought it wasn't going to be as hot. So wrong. I ended up pushing the pants up like bloomers without caring one wit about what people thought, I just wanted to be cooler. Verona was a waste of time, on we drove to Venice. We boarded a boat and went into the city for our night time pleasure and it was. Sal and I found a small cafe by the Rialto bridge and sat with a drink watching the gondolas and boats cruise the canal. Then we wandered down some side streets until we found a restaurant where the locals were dining and ordered a good pizza with a bottle of Proseco for dinner. Delicious.
The next day in Venice, the heat came back full force and worse, being surrounded by the canals, it really felt oppressive. I learned from the Rome experience that if I was walking around with only crabby sentences in my head to leave and so after seeing all of the grand sites that is what I did. Happily two other women from our group were feeling as cranky as I and so we went on the water taxi which was crowded but a kick.
Listening to what you need even if it is against the rules ["you are to be in Venice until the bus takes you to you hotel at 6 PM"] makes imminent good sense any time, especially when you are travelling. Going back to an air conditioned hotel room felt just right and I am not a whiny baby pee pants.
susansmagicfeather copyright 2011 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved.
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