THE ITALY TRIP
Leg Four: Rome
As April moved to a close, we delivered our Ford Focus back to the rental agency in Orvieto and hopped a train for the Eternal City, passing through some remarkably long tunnels en route (and suffering extreme ear-popping pressure changes in the bargain). The cab ride from Termini station to our hotel was a bit tense, thanks to the lack of seat belts, but we arrived safely at the Hotel Spring House, which sits within two blocks of the Vatican City walls. Our seventh-floor room and its terrace were near-palatial, which made the fact that the elevator went only as far as the sixth floor somewhat easier to bear.
With all the transit, we didn't have time to do any real sightseeing, but we decided once again to take Rick Steves up on his restaurant recommendations, which took us to Antonio's Hosteria di Bastioni near the Vatican walls. There we discovered what may be the best salmon I've ever tasted; Kelly's came grilled, with just seasoning and a little lemon, while mine came grilled with green peppercorns in a sauce of supremely tasty (but mysterious) yellow sauce. For total meal satisfaction, Pergola in Orvieto edged this one out, but it was a near thing.
Kelly may vote differently, as her quest for tiramisu was at last concluded. It had been on the menu but not in the kitchen at both dall'Onesto in Florence and La Palomba in Orvieto, so Antonio's was the first place able to bring it to the table. I'm not a big fan of custardy things, but she let me taste the espresso-soaked cake, and it nearly made my fillings buzz. She looked kind of like Bernini's
St. Teresa in Ecstasy through most of the dessert course.
On May Day--yes, we hit Italy over Easter, Liberation Day,
and May Day--many things were closed, but St. Peter's doesn't follow the secular schedule, so it became the focus of our afternoon. How can one describe St. Peter's? I can't really call it anything but "too much." In size, layout, and decoration, it goes into counter-Reformation style and comes out the other side; it makes Baroque itself look minimalist. Almost all of the innards date from after Luther, but one gets the sense that somehow they offer the best possible evidence of Luther's complaints about the Church's excesses. As churches go, it's a peacock--lavish, filigreed, pompous, conspicuous. Or maybe it's more like a rapper, boasting of its size, its power, and its bling-bling. After all, the marble floor includes marks showing where the world's other great churches would fit if they were set inside the nave. It was impressive, but I'll admit I didn't expect to see, set in stone, the results of God's Own Pissing Contest.
There are some pieces of real artistic potency--Michelangelo's
Pieta, the ancient bronze statue of St. Peter with the eroded toes, Bernini's dove window beyond the altar, the crypt of St. Peter--but they're often almost lost in the swarm of marble, gold, and miscellaneous statuary. The tomb of Pope Alexander VII is an astonishing display of ornate carving (and a whooooooole bunch of red jasper), but to me it spoke a lot more about the hand of Bernini than the hand of God.
Kelly's summary: "I've never felt this Protestant in my life."
We opted not to fight the mile-long line to climb the dome and instead went back to the hotel to turn off our brains (otherwise known as "to watch
Air Force One.") To my surprise, I got another lifer from the terrace as a Yellow-legged Gull flew overhead. We finished off the day with a meal at La Cucaracha, the Mexican restaurant across the street from the hotel; I had enchiladas verdes and a Dos Equis and felt strangely at home.
The next day saw the re-opening of the Vatican Museum, but the line to get in was so long that we opted to spend the day doing the consumerist thing. We grabbed some Moleskin notebooks, a pair of red wrestling-style boots for Kel, and some hard-to-find CD stuff for me: a greatest hits collection by Kid Creole and the Coconuts (WHEN, I cry, will
Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places be available on disc?!) and a compilation of Sheila Chandra tunes. Kel also snagged two singles we'd been hearing for the past week, a Panjabi MC tune and Jarabe de Palo's ridiculously infectious "Bonito." We dined at La Rusticella, another Steves rec, where the appetizer buffet was enormous (and crammed full of people within twenty minutes of its opening). Next door we discovered Gelateria Millennium, which had the best selection of gelato flavors we'd seen, but was still no Pasqualetti's.
Next morning we got up and got in line for the Vatican Museum thirty minutes early; alas, a few thousand other people had had the same brilliant idea. Still, we got in only about twenty minutes after the doors opened. I was soon struck by the number of pieces donated by various popes and cardinals--men whose names were prominently displayed on the pieces, though the sculptors' names usually weren't--and tried to remember the chapter and verse that mentions the virtue of anonymous giving. We moved through the ancient world's treasures fairly early, taking our time with
Laocoon and a few other pieces, but found ourselves most moved by the museum's not-so-well-known collection of modern religious artwork. After seeing weeks' worth of art that was primarily about what we see, it was nice to see some pieces that were more about what we
feel: Weirent's cartoony/medieval-style
Life of Christ panels, Cantatore's
Crocifesso 1962 mosaic, and Casorati's beautiful, understated
Angel of Night were absolute stunners. Still, the Sistine Chapel is amazing, despite the mob of tourists packing it (and surreptitiously videotaping it, in some cases).
During the long march back to the entrance, I began imagining a gigantic Vatican yard sale, where dozens of
Madonna con Bambino statues are priced to move. With the proceeds, we can mine the asteroid belt or irrigate the Sahara.
For lunch, we got hustled at the
Pizza e Birra ("Pizza and Beer") trattoria on the Via di Candia--really the only time we felt taken advantage of during the whole trip. The counterman talked up a variety of dishes & quickly slapped 'em onto our plates. I had only pasta and a beer, while Kelly had the recommended fish dish, pasta, and a beer When the bill came, it was
43 euros. Caveat emptor. We washed the taste out of mouths by dining at Antonio's again that evening, getting a full meal for
44 euros; this time I went with the swordfish--delicious in the extreme--and Kel tried the salmon w/peppercorn sauce, which was just as good on the second night.
And from there, it was one more night in the hotel, a quick dash to the airport, a foggy wait in the terminal, and a layover in Frankfurt before we were heading home again. For two weeks, we saw delights of all sorts, got gobs of ideas for the book, and ate like kings; with all the walking we did, I think we even avoided putting on the pounds. Best of all, we've left plenty to see when we return--the Accademia, Venice, Pompeii, the classical sites of Rome, Etruscan monuments of all sorts. But if nothing else, I've learned that I can function in a place where I don't speak the language, which is a lesson well worth learning.
When I spoke to him after returning, my brother demanded that I tell him whether England or Italy was better, which was kind of a silly question; for one thing, I've lived in England, and have toured Great Britain from end to end on several other occasions, so I know it far better than I could know Italy after only two weeks. But in the end, it's apples and oranges. I never encountered a particularly good Italian beer, but I already know what dessert is waiting for me in heaven: a big dish of
bacio from Pasqualetti's.
Ciao, Italia.
7:16 AM
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THE ITALY TRIP
Leg Three: Civita
We departed Orvieto regretfully, but with great anticipation for our next stop: Civita di Bagnoregio, sort of a miniaturized version of Orvieto. It's a medieval hill city that sits atop an island of rock in an eroded bowl-shaped valley of clay. And for once, I'll abide by the "picture is worth a thousand words" rule and
show you what it looks like. Only fifteen permanent residents remain, and there's only one dog (Biro by name), one restaurant (Antico Forno), and one B&B there, all of them owned by Franco Sala, my nominee for Best Host in Italy. As we knew from reading our Rick Steves
Italy guide, getting to Civita requires crossing the 900-foot pedestrian bridge from the town of Bagnoregio, and because we'd parked in the wrong place, Kelly and I had added a good quarter-mile of steps to the distance, all of it naturally accompanied by our baggage. Luckily for us, Franco was in the kitchen at Antico Forna, and he immediately welcomed us (in English), sat us down with water and wine and bread, brought us some delicious penne in a red sauce, and sent us off to nap for a few hours. None of this appeared on our bill.
Exploring the city itself takes very little time, obviously, but staring at the surrounding countryside from atop the cliffs can easily occupy you for days. I also found myself staring at the local birds, which were determined to make my life list a good bit longer right from the get-go. I'd logged a Sardinian Warbler and a Eurasian Nuthatch before we'd even reached the bridge, and when Kelly and I went out to the city gates to look once more on the astonishing beauty of the valley, I was startled by the sudden appearace of a rosy- tan bird with black-and-white wings in a nearby tree beside the walkway. My first identification was Eurasian Jay, but it suddenly turned in profile and revealed both a long, thin, slightly decurved bill and a long, thin crest; it was a Hoopoe. Before I'd left home, I'd jokingly told the kids that this absurd-looking, ground-feeding creature was the bird I most wanted to see in Italy, and here it was--less than thirty feet from me, in a tree growing a hundred-odd feet from the valley floor, in plain sight. And so help me, it really does say "Oop oop oop." Kelly can confirm it.
After dinner in the B&B's dining room, I walked back over the bridge in order to move the car. I reparked it near the bridge on the Bagnoregio side, began the walk back to Civita, and found myself flabbergasted by a whole new view of the city's beauties: by night, with lights shining on the entranceway, it almost floats above the darkness, but the surrounding hill cities have their own distant green-and-orange lights, all wavering gently in the heat haze that rises from the earth. I caught my breath. It was like being in one of the Tanu cities of Julian May's
Saga of Pliocene Exile. I've never once felt like I was in a fairy tale, but this was the closest I've ever come.
I woke early the next morning and did the Birding Thing, logging my first European Jays and my first Turtle Dove, as well as hearing my first European Cuckoo. We went for a country drive and saw the beautiful Lake Bolsena (as well as my first-ever Black Kite) before stopping for the only mediocre meal we ate in Italy at some German-oriented tourist trap restaurant just south of Bolsena. Upon our return, we staked out a table in the garden at the Belvedere Inn atop the headlands overlooking Civita; there we finished our books and I wrote some postcards before taking one last look over the valley--whereupon I immediately spotted ANOTHER lifer--a Great Spotted Woodpecker. I had to put an addendum on a couple of postcards to my birding buddies.
We dined at the base of the bridge, in the Hosteria del Ponte, which has impressive aquaria and a mighty nice wine list. Darkness had fallen by the time we started crossing to Civita, but we could easily hear everything in the valley--including a horrifying cry that sounded like a woman, a fox, or some combination of the two being tortured. Kelly decided it was a bird, and that I ought to go look for it. I believe my exact words were, "He'll have to fly over the fucking bridge for me to see him." Nonetheless, I pulled out my field guide and started looking for night birds by the light of one of the bridge's lamps. Kelly walked back toward the base of the bridge and said, "That's not it, is it?" It was, actually--a Tawny Owl, which was sitting atop a tree only a few yards from our parked rental car. It was there for only a few seconds before it fell silently back into the forest in a swirl of grey and white feathers, but along with the Blue Rock Thrush I'd glimpsed earlier that day (and confirmed the next morning), the owl was the ninth lifer I'd spotted between Bagnoregio and Civita's gates--an average of one every 100 feet.
It's a magical place. Go there. Pet Biro. Tell Franco we said hi.
8:34 AM
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