Letters from Pemberley

We woke up this morning in Florence, paid dear Marcella, the fiesty grandma who runs Casa Rabatti, hit up a supermarket for lunch supplies, and hurried over to the train station to slip onto the 10:10 train for Roma. As we sped down the platform, I realized that we didn’t have assigned seats–Honours Catalonia Trippers will remember that this means you get to sit on the floor or in the luggage racks. As I mentioned yesterday, that was a lot easier on my bones seven years ago. If we’d waited for the next train (probably no more than 15 minutes), we could have gotten seats. We didn’t think it was a big deal at the time, but we would have if we could have forseen the rest of the day…

It was actually exciting to get back here to Roma. We knew exactly where our hotel was, and this time we got the room the Haneys stayed in–something I requested before but didn’t work out at the beginning of the week. Thanks, Naomi–it is way nicer!

We were feeling ambitious after a couple of days of sloth and shopping in Florence. So I decided we’d head down to Ostia Antica for the early afternoon, metro all the way up to the north side of town to do the Borghese Gardens, then do Rick Steve’s walk down to the Capitoline hill after dinner. It seemed manageable on the map.

Ostia is an old port town that has been excavated and is really amazing. It served Roma because it was at the head of the Tiber, and its ruins are in great shape (supposedly a grittier version of Pompeii, but we didn’t get there, so I can’t compare). We did the RS audio tour and spent about 2 hours exploring the ruins. I think it might have been my favorite outing of the trip because there were very few touristas–just an annoying American college group on a summer trip with their professor (sound familiar?)–but it was rich in ancient history. I really can’t wait to take Tommy there someday. It’s the kind of thing that little boys, fresh from reading Detectives in Togas, would LOVE. Unfortunately, however, we got there at 1:30, and it was blazing sun and in the 80s. We sweated like ancient Romans. When we decided to head back, we discovered to our chagrin that the train line goes out to the beach, and the train was stuffed full of youngsters returning from the beach. Suddenly the relaxing 30 minute train ride to break up our day of walking turned into a stiffling sardine-like experience.

We got out briefly to check out a pyramid and the Protestant Cemetery, where Keats and Shelley are buried. It was closed, so we just had to peek through the peep hole to see Keats’ gravestone. Having just seen “Bright Star” a few weeks ago, I was deeply moved.

We were adventurous, so we took the metro all the way up to the Borghese Gardens without stopping at the hotel to freshen up. We were standing the whole time. Rick Steves thinks it’s cute to get out a metro stop beforehand and walk up the Via Venezia. Up is the operative word. It’s a steep hill, with lots of exclusive hotels and restaurants. The Borghese Gardens are huge, so I made sure to get some ice cream (it wasn’t gelato) as soon as we got in to refresh myself. Derek suffered without any. We sortof got lost, but it was beautiful, and it was great to see that the Italians do have babies, though where they hide them everytime save Sunday afternoons, I don’t know.

We came out at the Piazza del Populi, where the Gaetanos had taken us the first night here. We walked all the way down to the Victor Emmanuel monument, stopping for dinner (mediocre–their oven was down, but we’d already sat down and were too tired to find a new place) and a side trip to the Spanish Steps to see where Keats and Byron had lived! Then up to the Capitoline Hill to see sunset and one last view of the Forum and the Colosseum (first thing we saw in Rome) before heading back to the hotel.

So not counting dinner, we’ve basically been on our feet for nine hours. Good thing we have an 8 hour plane ride tomorrow!

Another mediocre meal last night–we think maybe we’re not spending enough to get real fare (we’ve only had homemade pasta at lunch spots, and that seems like it should be a given at any meal over here), so we’re going to try a place one of Derek’s ND classmates recommended tonight. We’ll see…

Wow, I am tired. I keep thinking how just seven years ago, we were in Europe for a month, walking everywhere, following Dr Stewart up mountains and into castles. I feel a lot more than seven years older. We didn’t have too much planned today, so we went into a big market to get pastries and cherries for breakfast (followed by a supermarket for yogurt–how do Europeans make it without any protein until dinner time?). We did all of our souvenir/gift shopping in the San Lorenzo market. I won’t tell you what I got because all our recipients are reading this blog, but we each picked up a Florentine-made leather wallet for ourselves. Shopping and bargaining wears me out, so I was the crabbiest I’ve been yet as we waited for it to be noon so we could go to lunch! Poor Derek. We tried to have lunch at a RS recommended cafe, but they didn’t have their lunch menus out yet at 12:10. So we just ordered sandwiches (which were quite good) and sighed at our American tendency to eat early.

We wandered around quite a bit before going to the Accademia mid-afternoon. Michaelangelo’s David is the main attraction, dare I say the only attraction. David really is breathtaking. We just sat and stared in awe. There are some interesting half-finished Michaelangelo sculptures, but we were shocked to have done the entire RS audiotour and visited the other, deserted rooms (including a collection of musical instruments) in less than an hour. Uffizi this was not.

Refreshing ourselves with gelato (I’ve now tried kiwi, pear, strawberry, raspberry, lemon, almond, nutella, chocolate, vanilla, grapefruit, and chocolate chip), we got in line to climb the dome of the cathedral. Unfortunately, a group of dumb, spoiled American college students doing a summer abroad got in line behind us. I have an entire separate post on American college students studying abroad composed in my head that I’ll save for another day. But I digress. We climbed 463 steps. Beautiful view. I asked a couple of American girls to take a picture of us. We now have proof that we were in Italy together!

A few other notes…there are a lot of gypsies here, begging. I didn’t see any in Rome.

Europeans have a very interesting sense of style. Tweety and Teletubbies are common on adult t-shirts (I just passed a girl with the green teletubby and “I love being green”), and older women like to wear tight black t-shirts with cities or strange English spelled out in silver sequins (“Paris”, “Music My Life”).

I’ve seen very few Italian children, but most are still pushed around in strollers at age 6 or 7 and sport enormous pacifiers. Or they ride on the front of their mom’s bike, which is very cool–but only works if you have one kid! I should have tried that with Tommy while I had the chance.

Florence is basically a huge tourist trap. A beautiful, old, cultural one, but a tourist trap. In Rome, I had the sense that there were thousands of tourists at the main sights, but there were Roman people doing normal, real-life stuff. Here in Florence, there seem to be two categories: tourists, and Florentines making their living off of tourists. Maybe that’s why our dinners have been mediocre, surrounded by American tourists who loudly demand olive oil with their bread and salads before the main course.

But we are having fun, and I have high hopes for dinner tonight. Stay tuned…

We finally slept in this morning! Or rather, we woke up early but both managed to fall back asleep until 9:15. It was nice…

We were going to check out the Galileo Science Museum this morning, but it’s closed for rennovations until next week (so close!), so we just wandered around for the morning and ate some croissants. We got our first batch at a little place where we picked them up and went, then I wanted to sit down later, and it was ten euros more just for the privilege of sitting in a cafe. I think it was worth it for the people-watching, though. We also did a little shopping in the San Lorenzo market. We did not get our pockets picked, though I saw a pickpocket at work there yesterday. (He literally sidled up to a dumb American elderly tourist, looked the opposite direction, and bumped into him, his hand conveniently by the man’s pocket. I was three feet away, and I said Wow! loud enough for the guy to look up in my eyes, withdraw his hand, and say Scuzzi to the victim as if he’d just bumped into him. I wanted to lecture the tourist on safety, but I figured I’d saved him enough.)

Anyway, we did not get our pockets picked, because there’s nothing in them. Instead, we got a decent lunch (the food was good, the service poor) at a RS recommended place (he redeemed himself after the pretty mediocre dinner rec last night). Part of the bad service was that it took three times of asking for the check (plus another request by a ticked off Italian patron who was waiting for a menu the whole time) and half an hour to actually get it and pay. Then we had to high tail it to the other side of Florence to get in line for our Uffizi reservations. Strolling through Florence is pleasant; power-walking is less so.

The Uffizi is great. It’s crazy to think that the European elite like Lord Byron used to come here, too, to see the same paintings and sculptures we’re looking at today. The free RS audio guide was nice, but the necessity of sharing headphones in a very warm museum with swarms of tourists made it a little less pleasant. We were pretty worn out by the end of the Renaissance rooms–so much artistic splendor in a short time. The other bummer was that there’s a sheet of glass over most important paintings, so you can’t lean in close and really look at it. It was amazing, though, don’t get me wrong!

We wandered around afterwards, completely worn out and dehydrated, hoping that gelato would bring us around. It didn’t, so we headed back by way of the Duomo (it was nice to sit inside and ponder architecture for 15 minutes) and Derek took a pre-dinner siesta. Pizza and earlier to bed tonight! We’re wiped!

Okay, so after the strain of feeling like complete idiots who couldn’t communicate for 20 hours, we were glad to return to Roma to catch a fast train to Florence. We forgot to get lunch, and we had 8 minutes before the train started, so I sprinted off with a ten euro note, found a couple of vending machine packaged sandwiches, and hopped back on the train just in time. Then we found out they had food car on the train. Oh well. Derek has always wanted to eat vending machine sandwiches since seeing a NewsRadio episode about them. (????) Wow–we stepped off the train here in TOURIST CENTRAL. We’re staying where Rick Steves stays, Casa Rabati, run by a little old Florentine Grandma who looks and acts straight out of a movie.

Interesting point–I’m noticing that the Italian-American culture I love in my in-laws (and portrayed in movies and tv) doesn’t seem to mesh with how Italians really act. We’re more exaggerated than they in some things, and understated in others. For one thing, most Americans have gotten over thinking that smoking is cool. Everyone here still thinks so. We can be eating a lovely meal in a piazza, then suddenly some well-dressed jerk next to me lights up. I miss being able to cough and hack and guilt him into snuffing it out like at home.

Not too much here yet, just watching the thousands of tourists, running into the Hillsdale College old person tour (yes, we talked to Dr Arnn), and eating a mediocre meal. But the outside of the Duomo is beautiful, and we’re going inside tomorrow! And the gelato is great. =)

SO much happened, and we have about 200 pictures, but I’ll condense my 8 pages of written notes (since there was no internet, I wanted to remember everything). We drove down to Alvito yesterday to visit the birthplace of Derek’s grandparents. It is a Beautiful town on a mountain. I hope some of the pictures do it justice. No one spoke English, so I had to resort to my rusty French to communicate with the proprietress of the hotel. See, I should have brushed up on my French instead of trying to learn Italian! Too bad I don’t know how to say “cemetery” in French…we didn’t find it until the second day.

So we couldn’t actually DO much, but we walked all over the village, checked out the castle at the top of the mountain, ate at the cafe, where the waitress got really frustrated when I asked for tè con leche, mixing up two romance languages I don’t know. She kept asking, lattè? And I kept saying, No! I don’t want a lattè! I want tea with milk! When she finally figured out I wanted milk, I said oui. She must have thought I was a freak, speaking THREE languages I didn’t know. Sigh.

Yesterday was Republic day, so everything in Alvito was closed. We had to drive to the nearest town, Sora, which seemed about 100,000 or so (compared to a couple hundred) in the pouring rain, but we had an amazing dinner with homemade pasta (Derek had fettucini, I had gnocchi) and delicious secondi (he had chicken, I had a buffalo milk caprese salad).

The hotel was AMAZING–dated, but 20 foot ceilings, clearly a former chateau or villa or something–must do more research on that. We had a huge suite of 3 rooms, and we awoke at 5:45 to birds singing on the mountain.

Still no English speakers in the morning (though plenty of gawkers), but we spend an hour or so exploring the cemetery to find that all of Derek’s family tree names are common (especially Angelo Tata), but apparently everyone who died before 1920 is buried somewhere else. Sadly, no one could tell us where. We probably found about 100 second cousins of Grandpa and Grandma, though… Maybe if we had the right words in any European language, we could have found out more. We stumbled onto the grounds of the local school, where a concerned mom got the teacher, who offered us a tour of the school after hearing that the Derek’s Nona was born in Alvito, but we had to decline.

Sadly, we had to get the car back by noon, but I think our 20 hours there were worth it. I took a ton of video, pictures of almost everything (seriously spooking the natives), and hopefully Derek’s Fam will be able to feel that they were there, too! I think we got the REAL Italian countryside experience, with air-dried towels, black (and I mean black) coffee, no English, and no other touristas.

A contrast to the rest of the day…

So last night the romantic night walk across Rome turned nightmarish as we missed the last metro, somehow got lost trying to walk back, ended up at a private disco party in the Borghese Gardens, and finally got back at 11:30. I was crabby and disgruntled with Rome.

This morning we saw the church that was built over the Roman baths (tried to picture Rufus falling through the roof like in Detectives in Togas) and checked out the National Musuem next to the Termini. Rick gave it 3 stars, I believe, but we blazed through in under an hour. Europeans don’t always have the best presentation of their acquisitions…the room full of display cases full of coins was…interesting, but how many coins can you look at in a sitting? Maybe more of an English guide would have helped, but I’m glad we got in free with our Roma pass. Would definitely skip next time.

We’re both really tired, and the train ride/drive to Alvito this afternoon sounds like a really nice break!

FYI, I’m planning to come back and add in pictures to these posts next week when we get home–we didn’t bring our computer here so we could travel light. We’ve taken over 200 already, so we have a LOT to download! I’m not keeping a journal, so this is my attempt to remember everything. So if dry travel recounting without pictures is not your cup of tea, come back next week.

We actually slept well last night. This morning a neighbor checking out of his room awakened us at 6:30. The walls are thin here.

We’re staying at Hotel Piemonte, where the Haneys stayed their last time in Rome. It’s a decent hotel, not fancy (we couldn’t afford more than two feet of floor space around the bed in this city!), but clean and convenient. The breakfast buffet was decent, too. I had nutella on a croissant and a salami sandwich; Derek had coffee yogurt.

We hit the streets early, riding bus 40 down to the Pantheon. Because it’s now a church, it was actually free to go in. I really liked it. After listening to the Rick Steves audio tour (downloaded for free to my ipod), we wandered down the block to a church with a Michaelangelo statue in it. It might be famous, but I didn’t know. I love that this city is so rich with culture that I can cluelessly wander into a church and see a Michaelangelo.

We were planning on morning things taking more time, but we strolled easily across the Tiber and arrived at Vatican City before 11–way earlier than we had expected! The line to get into St Peters was WAY long, and our tickets for the Vatican Museums were for 2pm, so we hung out the outside, got some so-so gelato, moseyed through a market north of the Vatican, and stopped for lunch at a restaurant Rick recommended. I had the best eggplant parmesan of my life.

We got into the Vatican museums at 1 (the lines had disappeared!), so we got our tickets early and started in. Laura S had told me that it’s incredibly big, but I hadn’t realized how big. I mean, I’ve been to most of the top museums in America, the Louvre, etc, but wow, there’s nothing like it. We just had to skim through things because there is SO MUCH and we were warned by several friends to save our energy for the Sistene Chapel. Unfortunately, there were about 500 tourist groups going through at the same time, so we were continually jostled, and the Raffael room with the School of Athens was so jam-packed that I just took a quick picture and escaped to breathe again.=( The Sistene Chapel is more amazing than you expect. We spent about half an hour in there, with the Rick Steves lecture, then craining our necks to get a glimpse of everything. I’m not exaggerating that there were 100s of people in there.

We took the “secret” side exit straight over to St Peter’s, which was still pretty full, but you hardly notice once you’re inside. We had a good, long look around and climbed 320 steps to the top of the dome. My legs will be screaming tomorrow, but the view was worth it! I hope our pictures sortof turn out. The view of Rome was amazing.

By this time it was about 5, and our feet were pretty tired. My Keens are amazing (thank you, Laura, for talking them up so I’d buy them), but still…I’m not usually on my feet like this! We got better gelato on the way back to the metro and came home for a little break before we head out to do a night walk across Rome, have pizza, and visit the Trevi fountain. If I have any energy left, I might blog about it tonight. Tomorrow we’re going to finish up Rome and head to Alvito!

We arrived right on time, though some serious turbulence over the Atlantic almost did Derek in. He managed about two hours of broken sleep here and there, but I can’t sleep vertically. Fortunately, I had provided myself with scintillating airplane reading–Twilight. It was not as bad as I had expected–I actually didn’t mind the first half–and I feel culturally aware now.

Once we got checked in to our hotel and washed our faces (!), we headed out to the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill. We took a Rick Steves recommendation for lunch and ordered antipasti at Nerundi something or other. I was thinking it would be a little different–I got a plate with two slices of proscuitto, a small fish, several mushrooms, an artichoke heart, three tiny slices of sausage, and 4 olives. Not quite the lunch I’d been hoping for. Rick recommended that we just get antipasti at this place to save money, but I don’t think we’ll go that route again. Sandwiches are cheaper and more filling!
We shared my ipod as we listened to the RS tour of the Colosseum and Forum (smirking that our Roma pass, purchased at a tobacco shop, got us past the hundreds of sucker tourists standing in line to buy tickets). It’s pretty incredible. As we walked past these two thousand year old ruins with all this history, I felt very surreal. Or maybe it was the jet lag.

The best part of the day was the evening, however…after experiencing a truly horrific day getting locked out of her apartment without money, food, or phone, Amy Gaetano cooked up a delicious Italian meal for us in a kitchen about the size of a church nursery toy kitchen. Bruschetta Chicken that I have to recreate at home, yummy pasta and salad and bread, and a great strawberry dessert. She and Matt had helpful suggestions for the rest of our time here–they’re pros after being here for months! They took us out to the Piazza del Populi where the kids ran around (making us wish ours were there to join the fun) and we chatted and people watched and tried to realize we were really in Rome! A quick metro ride, and we happily got off at the Termini neighborhood (the side streets of which are not nearly as urine soaked as Regina had led me to believe) for nice hot showers and SLEEP!

The peanut butter we were bringing to the Gaetanos didn’t make it past security. Since we are a pb-free household, it never occurred to me that it was a liquid to be regulated. But we skipped the 100 person line to check bags, so it’s still worth it to just carry on. And now our load is even lighter.
Starting to seem real!