Mike and Dave's Adventures in Italy (2009)


jpg

Dublin

jpg I will forever remember Dublin as dark, cold and rainy because that's what it was when we landed at 11:30PM (which was 4:30AM Dublin time) and bused and then dragged our luggage through cobblestone streets for 45 minutes in the pouring rain, looking for the hole-in-the-wall hotel we were staying at ..... and finding that it was closed.

But happily the front desk guy just showed up and let us sit in the coffee shop (while the cleaning lady mopped the place up) until it officially opened at 7AM, when he served us a huge breakfast, that we ate (at 2AM our body time).

He let us leave our luggage in the closet, and we ventured out into the rain (we were soaked, so what did it matter) and walked around until noon Dublin time (5 hours) in the rain until we could check into the room and collapse for 3 hours (which we did).

It almost stopped raining so we went out again and ate and drank like Hemingway.

In the course of this, we ventured to Trinity College and found ourselves in "The Long Room", which is a classical library that is overpowering in it's design and the storage of the wisdom it holds .... in my awe of it, it was the equal of the cathedrals we were to see in Italy .... it was certainly the most impressive room of wisdom that I have ever been in, and if I had to stay in one room all my life, that would be the room.

We moved on to "The Book of Kells", which I will not do justice in explaining.

Dublin is a very pretty city, which we would come back to on our way home .... but the rain that day (and our jet-lag) made it a fairly disgusting day (night?).

♦♦ Pictures of that Day in Dublin ♦♦


Ryanair Flight to (almost) Venice

Next morning we packed off (at 4AM) for our Ryanair flight to the Treviso airport, which is almost in the same country as Venice & Padua (our actual destination). I am going to spare myself the rage of describing this experience, and jump to the final page to say that I will never never never fly Ryanair airlines again ..... I'd rather crawl through Europe on my bleeding knuckles and knees.

Padua

jpgWe exited the Treviso airport and bought 2 bus tickets to Padua from the (Asian) convience store across the street from the airport. The girl was Asian and spoke only Itailian, but Mike worked his magic and got us the tickets. We bused for 30 minutes through a mixture of places that looked like Staten Island, olive-grape-fig farmland and industrial patches. Older (50 - 70 yrs old) folks were riding bicycles with baskets to shop, business folks were riding bicycles to work..... I knew we were in another world even before we got off the bus in Padua.

jpg In retrospect, Padua was my favorite place to be on our trip ..... snobby though it was. Our room at the Toresino B&B was very fine (patio included), and the owner / hostess was a charm who prepared breakfast and met us half way on the Itailian-English bridge. Padua is a college town, not really a tourist town, and (we found out) kind of snobby, but (after I ditched my shorts and flowered Americano-touristo shirts and bought some new clothes !!!) we fit right in. The shopping experience in Padua is incredible .... whatever you desire in clothes, jewelry, fashions .... Padua has it in spades. We traveled on the public buses, trams and trains, and virtually no-one spoke English, so Mike was at full l'Italiano throttle getting us here and there.

I actually bought pants at an outdoor market, and had them taken up (5" !) by a seamstress who worked at one of the larger stores (new pants are always too long in Italy and then seamed up to fit).

We settled in at our favorite bar-cafe, across the street from St. Anthony's cathedral (where I lit a candle for Deb). The waitress was one of those blustery characters you read about in cafe novels.

We spent 2 days enjoying Padua and gave Venice one day, and that was a great decision .... Padua rocks!

♦♦ Pictures of Padua ♦♦


Venice

Venice (the city) is beautiful, but it is overrun and made ugly by the tourists (its only "industry") and vendor pushcarts (reminicent of it's history, but nonetheless ugly), and the real secret is to wander the back streets and avoid the tourists & pushcart vendors completely .... and so we did.

jpg

On the train from Padua to Venice a mother-daughter team sat across the aisle and talked a bit with Mike. The daughter was into The Lord of the Rings books and the mother travels regularly to the USA, so the chatting went on and on. I grunted and smiled, as I could not hear a word. When we got out at Venice, I took their picture by the canal.

The main streets in Venice and overpacked with tourists and vendors, and the canals are crowded with jams of gondolos ..... don't imagine you will wander about or ride a gondola quietly and alone.

We mostly wandered the back streets and alleys (some so narrow, two people had to turn sideways to pass) where the natives travel about, and avoided the vendor carts with tourist trinkets. Venice is very pretty by itself, hanging laundry and all. When we went over to St. Mark's basilica, they wanted us to leave our bags and cameras, so we walked out because I was not about to turn over my camera nor Mike his laptop. Then we skirted the waterline along with the tourists and headed "home".

The train ride back to Padua was hot (no air conditioning) but the Italians take this all in stride and simply (and literally) sweat it out, as we did also.

Back in Padua, we really got into the language and bought some books (novels) in l'Italiano to read (and learn) back home. I bought The Great Gatsby and A Movable Feast (both of which I have in English). Then we toured the Scrovegni Chapel, which was interesting and unique in its paintings and the fact that we had to sit in an airlock room for 15 minutes to "climatize" the chapel after the previous group left !

I recorded that we walked 12 hours that day and the day before.

♦♦ Pictures of Venice ♦♦


Train from Padua to Florence

On Sabato (that's Saturday in Inglese) we used our Padua Cards (which I forgot to mention is a great deal for public transit and museums) to tram to the train station, and got due bigletti di tren per Firenze (two train tickets to Florence). The train was extremely comfortable, is perfectly on time and makes only 4 stops on the way. A lot of luggage however would be a problem to deal with. We sat in the wrong seats, but it worked out okay. Cost was €64 ($85US) for two of us and it took 2hours and 20 minutes, and it was a pleasure.

Florence

jpg Florence (the city) is beautiful when viewed from far away, but not from the streets. It is the home of the greatest art the renaisance produced, but that is all encapsulated in museums and galleries, and does not show up as you walk around the city. However, from Michaelangelo's Piazza (high up, looking down) Florence is pretty.

Our "home" was a B&B in a very old building; when we got there, Albena Dimitrikova (our hostess) told us "pick a room" .... and so we did. Her manner of speaking and her personality reminded me greatly of Jane (a friend of ours), but she did not want to be photographed and put on a face so she doesn't look much like Jane in the picture. Her personality brightened up the tired, dreary building for sure.

(Apparently, the B&B's in Italy are often floors of an apartment building that are leased to B&B owners, and this was one and so was our home in Rome.)

We hiked over to the Ponte del Vecchio bridge, which is busy busy with touristy commercialism, much like Venice, but in fact, that is what it has been for hundreds of years. However, the stuff here was not junk .... the leather goods were perfectly crafted and very pretty. On the way, there was a political meetng of some kind and a building was surrounded by polizia, some with machine guns.

Day 2: Albena brought in a breakfast tray, and we ate coffee and cakes, and packed off to the Ufizzi Gallery that houses legendary classical artworks. But the caffeine hit me while standing on line and I went a little dizzy and over anxious for half an hour or so, but got over it.

The art at Ufizzi is renaisance age, flat perspective, religious themed art, which may be great, but gets tiresome after a while, and so it did. After that we walked, ate (Mike), drank (me) and walked more and ended up at the Academia Galleria, standing beneath Michelangelo's statue of David .... there is nothing much to say here that hasn't been said about this artwork. At dinner, I spilled wine all over myself while reaching for my camera and I smelled like a boozer (and looked like one !) for hours after .... luckily we did laundry that night and my shame was short lived.

Pisa and Lucca

Albena thought we should train out to Pisa (to see the tower) and Lucca (to see whatever was in Lucca), and so we did .... a very pleasant one hour trip, but it rained like hell in Pisa and we got out of there as soon as we saw the famous tower (which is okay because that's all Pisa has in the way of "sights"), and we trained over to Lucca (20 minutes).

There is basically nothing famous in Lucca, but it is very pretty and apparently very expensive to live in. There's a huge wall around the city that is so wide you don't realize you are walking on top of a wall ... nice place to chill out, if that's what you need to do.

♦♦ Pictures of Pisa & Lucca ♦♦


Back to Florence

jpg Trained back to Florence on a wicked nice train, upper deck ....walked to Ristorante Fagioli for dinner. The place was packed to the windows, the menu was in l'Italiano but the boss was helpful and dinner was perfect (we did not ever have a poor meal in Italy). However, I ordered tortellini and cabernet and got ravioli and chianti because that's what the chef thought I should eat for dinner .... ummmm..... okay (it was worth the switch).

Sat next to Wesley and Abby from San Fransisco (he's a doctor with a shirt pocket full of pens and pencils, she's a journalist ... he yaks and yaks, she is quiet).... they were very nice and we went on and on about this and that. By the time I left there, the alcohol level in my blood would run a jet engine.

Next day, Albena's husband (?) drove us to the station .... I aged 10 years .... where we trained to Rome, through Sienna (which was just beautiful) again on a very pleasant train for 2 hours ... a dream.

♦♦ Pictures of Florence ♦♦


A Side Note

I didn't know quite where to fit these thoughts, so I'll wedge them in here....

Despite the fact that I believe that religions around the world are basically evil institutions that set good, decent people at war with each other (in the name of various gods !) and that promote intolerance, bigotry, hatred and violence, I consider myself to be a very religious person. That is, I believe in a "higher" Being that generated the Laws that generated the universe we exist in, and that all souls in the universe are (somehow) connected to that Being (don't ask me how). I can't prove that, but there is lots of stuff I can't prove that I believe in (like the effects of mass on space and time, but that's another topic)..... fact is I am a religious soul that despises the history of wordly religions.

One thing however jumps out at me as I walk into the various cathedrals we visited, and that is the love of that Being (God ?) that is crafted into the artwork. It may be true that religious organisations suck, but it is obviously true that people, in their hearts and souls, connect with a God of some kind and have tried over the centuries to express that in their art. There is something bigger than us out there in the universe that our hearts and minds and souls strive to be close to .... and some great collections of art and literature seem to assure you of that .... we saw evidence of this in the Italian Cathedrals and in Trinity College's "Long Room".

Rome

Buckle up there kiddo, Rome is the big city.

jpg Take New York City ..... make the streets very narrow ..... remove every stop sign, yield sign and traffic signal ..... get everyone wired up on espresso before they hit the streets in cars, scooters and as pedestrians ..... now you have created Rome.

The native population is very diverse, with many Asian and East Asian people (I bought underwear in a Pakistani store that was 12' × 20' , and the guy spoke no English but we grunted and pantomimed through the conversation).

Took a bus to the Vatican (using our Roma Card, which is a great deal) and I watched scooters pass the bus by slipping into the oncoming traffic lane. That double yellow line is for only casual reference, I suppose.

jpg St. Peter's basilica is beyond description, in itself and the artwork it houses. Michaelangelo's Pieta is there, and is the most emotional piece of artwork I know of (I saw it at the 1964 World's Fair). Just before we went into St. Peter's, the Pope came out and cruised along in his cart and waved to everyone. Mike got a pretty good photo of him, that I have yet to steal. Then we slipped over to the Sistine Chapel (Capella Sistina), which is part of thr Vatican museum. It is peculiar, but the "exhibit" is actually the museum (several chapels) itself, and not much enclosed artwork. We mailed postcards from the Vatican post office, and I bought Deb two rosary beads. We walked from piazza to pizza until we got back to the room at 9:30PM, dead tired.

jpg Next day we mailed home our dirty laundry and purchased books, etc. Then off to the Pantheon (not to be confused with the Parthenon in Greece) and then Trevy Fountain, and then the Tre Scallini restorante in the Navona Piazza, which we found ourselves returning to several times. There is a very handsome older guy in a dark suit and pink tie who stands outside and schmoozes people to sit at the outdoor tables (beneath a tent and propane umbrella heaters), and we got a kick watching him work .... he had a 95% success rate!


jpgOn the way back, I had a 3D version of my head encapsulated in lucite (it didn't hurt nearly as much as I expected).

Next day we saw the Museum of Rome (peaceful courtyard of archeological remnants) and the Borghese Gallery, which has 15 signs in 4 languages saying that there were no tickets left but when I asked they let us in on our Roma Passes for free with no discussion and we went right in (those Italians!). Borghese was my favorite "museum" of all .... the marble sculptures were inspiring. Then it was back to Tre Scallini where I had a glass of Montenegro (Italian Yukon Jack) and Macedonia (fruit salad) that put me in a great smooth mood for a few hours. Mike ate gelati like the world was ending.

But .... we knew the party was over, and in the morning, we started off to the airport to head for Dublin.

♦♦ Pictures of Rome ♦♦


The Cost of This Trip

Mike and I each spent about $2400 for all travel, lodging and eating expenses on this trip. (Shopping expenses are not in that number.)

For comparison, I checked the TAUCK Travel Tours for what they charge for 14 days in Italy during this time period. Now .... TAUCK delivers a supreme, first rate vacation package (we have traveled with them) and in terms of physical comfort, our trip rated a C whereas a TAUCK Tour would certainly be an A+.

The cost of a 14-day TAUCK Tour of Italy (which does not include every meal) is $6490 per person, NOT including airfare. If we use the same $672 airfare that Mike and I paid, that gets the TAUCK Tour up to $7200 per person (plus you need to pay for 6 dinners and 10 lunches on your own, but let's not quibble over that ).

On a TAUCK Tour you would cover a lot more geography than we did, but on our tour we were much much closer to the local people and the day-to-day Italian lifestyle (for all it's pluses and minuses).

In retrospect, I'd get on a plane tomorrow and do it all over again the way we did it (with modifications as noted below).


On the Next Visit to italy ....


Large versions of my favorite pictures (11MB ... be patient !!)



page written by Dave Leo