Italy

St. Peter’s House

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The Vatican City, one of the most sacred places in Christendom, attests to a great history and a formidable spiritual venture. A unique collection of artistic and architectural masterpieces lie within the boundaries of this small state. At its centre is St Peter’s Basilica, with its double colonnade and a circular piazza in front and bordered by palaces and gardens. The basilica, erected over the tomb of St Peter the Apostle, is the largest religious building in the world, the fruit of the combined genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and Maderna. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 1965 I had missed seeing the Vatican because I refused to stand in line three hours. So we took the Metro across the Tiber River to the stop near the Vatican and noticed that the trains in Rome are completely covered-every square inch-in graffiti-so much so that Bob thought that the local government had commissioned it! Not!

After 23 years of Catholic education for Bob and 16 for me, we approached the Vatican in complete ignorance-we knew next to nothing about the Vatican or the Pope-probably says something about being Catholic…or Polish. The Polish never did like being told what to do-and neither did Bob’s ancestors-German immigrants to the Ukraine.

We learned that the Vatican occupies 108 and one half acres within the confines of Rome. It is a separate city with it’s own postal service and does a brisk business selling its postcards and stamps that must be mailed in their own mailboxes. Seeing this made it hard to picture the Catholic church that once wheeled and dealed as the mightiest power in Europe.

St. Peter’s Basilica and the Cupula
St. Peter’s is called planning for the “long term. Planning for the short term is Oregon’s Governor Barbara Roberts being given a hard time because she wants to put a nice rug and some cherry wood furniture in the Archives building! I said as much to a Canadian standing next to me at the top of the Cupula (the dome on the top of the basilica) after climbing 350 stairs and suffering claustrophobia from the slanted walls. I told my Canadian friend that I thought the world was trying to tell us that our values are in the wrong place. His answer brought me up short “Yes, we are so practical yet because we are such a young society. We are still developing and building. Other ancient societies have already had their chance to learn what is important in life.” So now, while we name buildings after politicians and businessmen, Rome names it’s airport after Leonardo da Vinci!

The confessional area was lined with priests hearing confessions in many languages. Bob tried to find out if it was customary to give an offering. I asked him if he was planning on going…he said he didn’t need it at which I shot him the big poof of air that the French taught me how to do.

Meanwhile, Bob was watching the sun coming in one of the windows high in the nave magically illuminating all of one particular statue-the one of St. Helen. He wondered aloud if St. Helen “had something to say” to him-probably, he said brightly, “to keep up the good work!”

Sistine Chapel
Would take weeks or months to absorb everything in the Vatican museum and all the rooms of art (Bob was pretty energized by the modern religious art). In the half hour we were in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican monitors shushed us every 2-3 minutes which really raised Bob’s hackles! He said it reminded him of Sister Mary Barbara! But I said I thought the noise may be damaging to the art. Besides, I told him it shouldn’t be a circus in there. I just got a harumph in reply.

Before taking the Metro back to the hotel we stopped at a small cafeteria run by three energetic young guys who served up pizza, rice stuffed tomatoes in a great pomodoro sauce with those tiny noodles and a veal dish with another kind of pomodoro sauce at our streetside table. Either we were very hungry or this was the best food in Italy!

Rome

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“Italy will return to the splendors of Rome, said the major. I don’t like Rome, I said. It is hot and full of fleas. You don’t like Rome? Yes, I love Rome. Rome is the mother of nations. I will never forget Romulus suckling the Tiber. What? Nothing. Let’s all go to Rome. Let’s go to Rome tonight and never come back. Rome is a beautiful city, said the major.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms.

Took one of those plush high speed TGV trains from Florence to Rome-one and a half hours. Wish the U.S. could have a similar system. A nice young guy in Bayonne, France who, while selling me some wonderful French perfume, told me about his three months he spent in the states and Canada-by traveling and sleeping on buses!

In Rome we checked in Pensione Cortorillo near the Termini (train station). This time there is a lift to the fifth floor. However, it was about 3 feet by 3 feet square. Bob thought he was going to be smart so he turned around and backed in with his backpack on. I walked in face first flat up against him. The inner doors (like French doors) barely closed behind me. Ok, good to go. Press the button nothing happens. Then Bob realizes that there is an outer door. So I have to back up through the door, turn around and back in so I can close the outer door. We get to the fifth floor. The lift stops. I look down through the metal grate of the lift and see the next floor about 12 feet down. Bob can’t see anything but now we can hear voices so I am thinking that since I can hear them maybe they will hear us holler for help. After some few seconds (which is long enough for many different thoughts to race through your head) Bob manages to turn his head far enough to see that behind him is another metal grate door and through it he sees the hotel proprietor waving frantically and yelling for Bob to open the door behind him which he does with great difficulty. Saved from eternal imprisonment in Rome.

The Vatican City, one of the most sacred places in Christendom, attests to a great history and a formidable spiritual venture. A unique collection of artistic and architectural masterpieces lie within the boundaries of this small state. At its centre is St Peter’s Basilica, with its double colonnade and a circular piazza in front and bordered by palaces and gardens. The basilica, erected over the tomb of St Peter the Apostle, is the largest religious building in the world, the fruit of the combined genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and Maderna.
We took a two-hour bus tour to get an overview of this city full of marble domes, Roman ruins with pieces lying willy nilly about, noseless and penusless statues and motorcycle dust. The tour was narrated in English but we only understood about half of it because of the Italian accent.

I had wanted very much to see the Trevi Fountain across from which was a delightful guesthouse where Barbara and I, in 1965, could look out on the fountain from our second floor window. We weren’t looking, unfortunately, when every last single bit of our luggage, and film, was stolen out of the trunk of my little red Spitfire Triumph that night. Legend has it that a traveler who throws a coin into the Fontana di Trevi, with its rumble of cascading water emerging from the back wall of the Palazzo, is ensured a speedy return to Rome and one who tosses two will fall in love in Rome. Well, in 1965 the first coin didn’t ensure such a speedy return but the second coin worked-my travel partner was charmed by a young Italian and spent a week longer in Rome while I went on toward Berlin by myself.

Rome is sensory overload of 2000 years of world history, art, architecture, politics and literature. We were exhausted after trying to absorb Florence and now Rome so we retreated gratefully to our room for a nap-falling asleep to the sound of music from “The Doors” and laughter from the young backpackers that filled the pension.

Last Night In Florence

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April 24, 2002
On the last day in Florence our room was booked by someone else and we had to move a few doors up the street to the Hotel Abaci. We had the Boticelli Room-pretty fancy compared to what we were used to. Many of the eight rooms in the hotel were right off the small dining area set up in the hall, so during breakfast people were coming out of their rooms in their jammies to cross the dining area to get to the WC around the corner-but they didn’t seem to mind a bit and neither did we-this is Europe.

In Florence I found internet nirvana. The young guys configured my computer so I could connect to their server and cut and paste my travel reports. Funniest experience was in Bayonne France where I asked to do this and they insisted I could just plug my phone wire into the wall and I’d be on the internet! The Senegalese guy at the local computer school really got a laugh out of that one. By the way, one of my readers says that her adult children, who are all computer nerds, contend that the reason the internet is not prominent in France is because the telephone wiring hasn’t been updated (except in the south) since World War I and doesn’t have the capacity.

In the old city near the Duomo where we were staying we passed a small church that was offering a concert with about 12 versions of Ave Maria sung by a young tenor. I thought I’d gone to heaven-for awhile anyway. Except for the American pop music played in most public venues, I realized we weren’t getting much good music, which, as a friend reminded us, is balm for the soul.

Michelangelo’s David

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Bob is going on a walking tour where he will learn how the Renaissance Medici family ruled and held onto their city as an independent state for three centuries in face of pressure from the Papacy and how they commissioned some of the greatest art in the western world. He will learn about the political intrigues of the time and what precipitated Machiavelli’s “The Prince.”

Built on the site of an Etruscan settlement, Florence, the symbol of the Renaissance, rose to economic and cultural pre-eminence under the Medici in the 15th and 16th centuries. Its 600 years of extraordinary artistic activity can be seen above all in the 13th-century cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore), the Church of Santa Croce, the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace, the work of great masters such as Giotto, Brunelleschi, Botticelli and Michelangelo. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Florence in 1965, I have an indelible memory of walking along looking at Michelangelo’s unfinished works in the Galleria dell’ Accademia (Europe’s first school of drawing) lining both sides of a long hallway. Finally, at the end of the hallway I looked up and saw the most beautiful body I had ever seen standing on a four foot pedestal under a lighted dome…David…and reaching out and touching what I could have sworn was flesh…

Bob will have his own experience albeit probably quite a different one! Actually Michelangelo’s unfinished work was just as thrilling…like watching contorted bodies writhing-climbing-free of their prisons. Carved from a gigantic block of marble, David was finished in 1504 when Michelangelo was just 29…his work an inspired miracle!

Serendipity Florence

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Well, we are in Florence, by serendipity, on April 5, 2002. By that I mean that we were on the train from Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera headed to Siena when we realized we would be going through Florence to get there. I had actually been pulling for Assisi where my favorite saint is buried and where son Joshua had spent several months living-studying the language and the food. But I told Bob it was a sin not to see Florence so we decided to jump.

Bob left me in the train station in charge of the baggage and a USA Today and took off looking for a hotel. Actually was touching for an hour observing the old men sitting here and then after a few minutes changing places there-taking up seats, as in every European train station, with no place else they would rather go. Maybe old men need train stations to sit and remember…and dream while they watch…who? I imagined the old women probably home gossiping together about how the youngsters in town were all going to hell.

Last night we ate at a modern hip restaurant-very noisy-with lots of “cool” people in black leather jackets-mostly Italians. We had the pasta sampler-5 different kinds so we are getting our fill of pasta! Today we ate lunch at a small down home Trattoria-pasta for the Primeri course and grilled steak for me and veal with sauce for Bob for Segundi course.

I am left with one single strong impression about these European countries. The people know who they are and they love being who they are. The Italians, especially, may suffer their pain in private but in public they love being with each other, talking laughing eating! Americans imagine everyone in the world wants to be American. Not true.

Cinque Terre

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Took a train to the Cinque Terre (Five Lands..or villages) area on the northern Italian Riviera.

The Ligurian coast between Cinque Terre and Portovenere is a cultural landscape of great scenic and cultural value. The layout and disposition of the small towns and the shaping of the surrounding landscape, overcoming the disadvantages of a steep, uneven terrain, encapsulate the continuous history of human settlement in this region over the past millennium. The area is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The towns, jutting out into the Mediterranean and straight up the hills on the coast are connected by walking trails through eighteen kilometers of sheer rocky coastline with terraced hills and vineyards sloping steeply down to the sea. The five little villages are built into the rocks between the beach and the hills. You can hike, swim, drink red wine, and watch blazing Mediterranean sunsets far away from the tourist throngs in the Italian cities and the French Riviera. Centuries old footpaths and mule tracks wind about 500 to 1,000 feet above the sea, leading through olive groves and vineyards, orchards and chestnut woods.

Each village has its own character, they are a few minutes apart by train. The main railway between Rome and Paris runs along the coast, mainly in tunnels. Bob compares the trail to the Nepali Trail on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. Extremely picturesque and very charming.

Vernazza is many peoples favorite village, dominated by the Round Tower and by the ruins of the medieval fortifications. It has a small harbor next to the village square.

Monterosso is pretty split into two by the tunnel and the mountains. If you are walking down from Vernazza, the old town is the first beached section and is well worth a walk around as it is loaded with lots of small, character-filled streets.

Famous for its vineyards and olive groves, Corniglia stands on the principal road over a rocky cliff dropping to the sea; it is the only village far from the sea but it can be reached by some steps.

Founded during the 12th century, Manarola probably is the most characteristic village of the Cinque Terre; the old church of San Lorenzo is in baroque style.

From Manarola starts the picturesque trail called ” Via dell’ Amore “, carved out of the rock above the sea, that joins Manarola to Riomaggiore. We stayed in Riomaggiore…the least touristed of the towns. Bob keeps calling it Rigamoroni!

The local internet was owned by a family that also rents out rooms. The woman was an American married to an Italian whose family has lived in the town for over a hundred years. I asked her how these towns supported
themselves before tourism. She said that tourism has actually been pretty good for about 30 years but not to the extent that it is now (especially since Rick Steves has reported that it is one of the off-the-beaten-track areas of Europe!!)

Years ago the men would leave on ships for months at a time-dealing in contraband-which they apparently could get away with due to its geographic isolation from the rest of the country. We continued talking-about my trip to Europe in 1965 and that the countries were very poor-even found dirt floors in rural France. She said that yes, after WWII the US pumped a lot of money into the Marshall Plan to reconstruct Europe but it took another 20-30 years for it all to trickle down and affect the living standards of the people generally.

We stayed in a private apartment owned by a nice old gentleman who “selected” us at the train station. The apartment hung on the side of a hill about 600 feet above the Mediterranean-couldn’t take your eyes off the view!

Hitching-Hiking Europe In 1965

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The summer of 1965, the summer I turned 21, a friend and former roommate, Barbara Stamper and I arranged to meet in London in June. She, a teacher, found an economical route to New York going by train across Canada while I flew from Oregon. She had broken her ankle a couple weeks before but that was not to stop us.

We took separate planes to London. However, when we compared arrival times one of us was using European time and the other one of us U.S. time. So thinking her arrival time was one hour behind mine hers was actually seven hours behind. After waiting in the terminal…checking passenger manifests again and again, I finally took a taxi into London and found a lovely guesthouse…and a bed! This was in the days before Lonely Planet mind you.

The next morning I called every place I could think of in the hopes that Barbara would also be looking for me….American Express, U.S. Consolate, British Consolate, flight desk at the airport…and stayed put. In the meantime I began thinking about what I would do if we didn’t connect and decided that I was all the way here and that I would just take off on my own. But finally, in the afternoon the hotel clerk came to my room…I had received a call! First lesson in traveling…have a plan B!

Before leaving the U.S. I had ordered, through AAA, a shiny bright new red Triumph Spitfire…$2000…from the British factory in London. So the first thing we did was make our way to pick up the car…then to learn to navigate driving on the left side of the road…nearly killing ourselves and possibly someone else until we got used to it.

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Cheese & Wine…Barbara still in her ankle cast

After getting the car and ourselves across the English channel to the Continent, we took off across Europe.

However, when we stopped for the 500 mile check in Milan Italy, the mechanic didn’t screw the oil cap on tight enough…leaving us stranded on a lonely road late at night in southern France near Leon. We spent the night curled up under the tonneau cover. The next morning we locked up the car, hitched a ride the 60 km into Leon, had a good strong expresso, looked at each other and realized there was nothing we could do about the car here! So back we hitched to the car. I looked in the driver manual and discovered there was a Triumph garage in Grenoble.

Finally a smallish funny-looking French truck stopped and we animatedly agreed that after he ran some errands, the driver would tow the car to Grenoble. He did return…to our surprise…and he did tow our car to Grenoble…after first taking us on a tour through several tiny dirt-road French towns with small dirt-floor houses huddled together in small French valleys. This was less than 20 years after the end of World War II and the Marshall Plan had yet to dribble down to the local level. The villagers, who had never seen Americans before, crowded around us…touching…laughing…asking questions we didn’t understand. Our driver, proudly, had provided the day’s entertainment!

We had been watching all the American and European kids hitch-hiking around Europe so once we deposited the car at the garage, (it would take 18 days, the mechanic informed us) we hiked to a nearby market, collected two orange sacks, stuffed some clothes in them, left the rest of the stuff in the trunk, and stuck our thumbs out.

In the end, betting the car wouldn’t be ready in 18 days, we left the car there until the end of the summer when we drove it to Le Havre to put it on the boat for the U.S.

In the meantime we had incredible hitch-hiking adventures in Europe…meeting wonderful people and some not so wonderful.
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We tried to stick with the long-haul trucks that had to maintain a schedule…Barbara and I often lying together in the sleep compartment above the driver. One funny driver in France had recorded the conversation of a pair of Americans on a previous trip…describing how they had to sleep in a park one night. The driver didn’t understand a word of it but was amused by our facial reactions listening to the tape.

First the running of the bulls in Pamplona Spain where we spent the night in a local home, eating fried green tomatoes for the first time, while thousands of others spent nights sleeping in the fields. There were no night clubs or fancy hotels in Pamplona in those days!

Madrid, Barcelona, through the French Riviera…seeing Michelangelo’s beautiful David in Florence…Red light district in Amsterdam (Why are all these ladies standing around?”) Copenhagen, Belgium…Switzerland, sitting at the foot of the Matterhorn drinking beer while watching other young travelers sunbathing on the ice and snow on the side of the mountain.
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After picking up the car in New York I drove to Omaha Nebraska where Bob, the summer before we were married, had jealously spent a dreary summer studying for his medical boards…and piled out of the car in a near state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion.

This was to be the biggest life-changing experience of my life (and I think for Barbara)…seeing how other people in the world (at least Europe) lived and it put my own life in the States in a precarious perspective. I am still peeling the layers of that experience today…in July 2006…even after spending five years traveling twice around the world.