Another Planet

Rome was spectacular with its antiquities tucked among the modern.  Florence had ridiculous displays of opulence by people that called themselves "the Magnificent".  But Venice is another planet altogether.  Venice reminds me of a science fiction story where one basic element of life that we all take for granted is changed, and as a result everything else changes.  In Venice, it's the canals.  On the 180 islands that comprise Venice, you get around by foot or by boat.  Period.  No cars.  No trucks.  No firetrucks.  No wheeled ambulances.  Not even any "pedestrian only" zones as there's no way for cars to get there.

Everything's different without the cars.  Goods are brought in on little boats, and then hauled by hand on special carts with an extra set of wheels used to pivot up and down the steps on one pont (bridge) after another .  The UPS truck is a boat.  The mail comes by boat and then by foot.  The pace is slower as a result.  No dodging cars or waiting for traffic lights to change.  Some dodging of tourists and tour groups, but nothing too stressful.  The water buses go everywhere and frequently (though they are expensive). 

It's mystical.  Surreal.  While we were there, the sun filtered through a light haze, causing the distant church domes and bell towers (of which there were no shortage) to appear as if shot through a soft filter in a movie.  The soft focus of the place worked well with the soft color palette on all the buildings, adding to the effect.   I half expected to see two or three moons appear on the horizon, as if this were a different planet.

An Unchanging Place

Rome, Florence, Venice.  A typical tourist itinerary with a few days in each.  Clearly not enough to understand much about these places.  Especially when we've spent most of our time seeing the sights, and most of the people we see are foreigners, like ourselves.  But everything is run by the Italians -- or, as they may prefer -- by the Romans, Firenzians, and Venetians.  You get the sense that this society has been built up over several thousand years, including years when the Romans ruled the known world, the Firenzians paid for the Renaissance, and the Venetians created the gateway between east and west.  It's worked for all this time, so why should any ideas from the outside be any better?

It's easy to come from the U.S. and ridicule these entrenched ways.  We've done a lot of that, all while appreciating the culture that has resulted.  Try to imagine the people that lived amongst the ruins in Rome.  The emperors, senators, merchants, craftsman, servants and slaves.  The human and natural resources used to create the edifices that we see the remnants of today.  How were these used, and what were people's lives like?  If you wonder about this long enough, and do the research, I suppose you end up making one of those made-for-TV re-creations, which are probably 20 or 30 percent correct, but at least provide some exploration into life in those times.

Although life and society has progressed since then, in many ways it has not.  All the restaurants in Rome had the same menu.  In Florence, their own, and in Venice other variations.  No outside influences intrude.  No French.  No Spanish.  An occasional kebab.  And somehow, Chinese food has found a foothold, though we weren't brave enough to try.  Florence had three MacDonalds, one at the Duomo, and we definitely weren't brave enough to try that.  No experimental cuisine of any kind.  At all.  Maybe we're looking in the wrong places, but there's nothing that cried out for experimentation.  Just like in the 14th and 15th centuries -- there were two topics for paintings -- Madonna and Child, and Jesus on the Cross.  Room after room.  Church after church.  All in similar style that evolved ever so slowly through the ages.

Some things do change.  All the hotels we stayed in had wifi (pronounced wee-fee).  Few people took advantage of it.  We did not see a single laptop in a cafe or restaurant.  We aren't sure what the chicken or the egg is -- do people not have laptops, so the cafes don't provide wee-fee, or do the cafes not have wee-fee so people don't get laptops?


We didn't see much in the way of nightlife, but maybe we weren't looking in the right places.  There were few notices of popular concerts or bars with music.  We didn't see many bars at all.  Actually, we saw lots of bars but they were snack bars.  The snack bars served sandwiches, pizza, and beer/wine/liquor.  But not the kind of bar packed with people listening to loud music that you might expect. 

The slowly evolving nature of the place reminds me of Michael Pollan's writings about cuisine.  With cuisine, people have found that eating particular foods in particular order in particular ways led to healthy lives.  So, everyone eats the same thing.  And lunch doesn't start till 12:15, and can't be served after 2:00.  Dinner starts at 7:30, not earlier.  In the tourist zones, this is changing, and there's more flexibility, but this is how it is.

In the U.S., we have a hodgepodge of cultures, and there are no rules.  We relish our freedom and our choices.  But when we have no rules, it's easy to make poor choices, and as a result so many people have chosen unhealthy diets that lead to unhealthy lives.  Maybe after some more decades of experimentation our own society will settle on a cuisine that works for us, after healthful outcomes are demonstrated.

Perhaps there's a market for a Thai restaurant?

We're done with Italian part of the journey, but I've got one more post from there written but still to be posted.  In the meantime, here are the photos from Rome, Florence, Venice.

An Honest Mistake?

It's easy to feel vulnerable as a tourist.  Unless you know the language perfectly, and walk around town without your safety blanket -- day pack, camera, etc, you stick out like  a sore thumb.   This is especially true with my unfortunate choice of a bright blue pack with Eddie Bauer scrawled across the top.  In any case, the places we were going were frequented by tourists, even when we tried our hardest to blend in.  So, looking around, everyone eating at restaurants were tourists.  This should not be surprising, because there were 20 or 30 hotels within a few blocks.

We had found a pleasant, inexpensive little pizzeria-trattoria on our first day, and were treated well by the friendly waiter with the good sense of humor.  The next night we wanted to try the restaurant recommended by the hotel staff.  It was a bit pricier, and looked a little more refined.  Although we showed up at the usual dinner hour of 7:30, we were turned away because we didn't have a reservation. Reservation -- what a concept!  So we slinked back across the street to the simple place that treated us well the first time. 

Our meal was good, and we were happy.  The waiter seemed a little confused a few times about what we had ordered, but all turned out well in the end.  Upon asking for the conto -- the bill, the waiter proceeded to tally up the bill, scrawling a few unintelligible characters on a pad of paper, with a clearly legible total at the bottom -- 41,50.  This seemed high to us, so we recalculated on our own, and came up with 36,50.  Upon challenging the amount, we all recalculated together and came up 34,50, which suited us even better.  The waiter was a kindly, yet harried older man.  Susan gave him the benefit of the doubt, but I wasn't so sure.  It's so easy to take advantage of tourists who don't know how things work.  It would be so easy to play this game and hope the charade goes unchallenged. 


I hate to do it, but it always pays to be on guard.  Fortunately, usually Susan or I are on guard while the other spaces out, so we're covered.  We go through periods of paranoia, and then trust, like when we leave our luggage in the hotel reception area for the day on our last day in Florence with no baggage tags or other identifiers, trusting that the sometimes friendly and sometimes surly desk staff won't let someone walk away with our bags.  I wonder if anyone ever asks for a luggage tag?

Shall we have Italian food tonight? Or, beware the Ides of March.

After all the preparation, and all the packing and repacking, thinking and rethinking about what to bring, we found ourselves sitting on a Lufthansa plane, winging our way to Frankfurt, for an ultimate connection to Rome. Every once in a while we'd look at each other and laugh, that we were actually doing this – going to Europe for ten weeks.

I love flying into European cities with an easy walk connection to an express train that goes right to the city center. Though this had been our plan all along, the prominent signs offering express bus service to the same exact spot for several euros less were enticing, until the company that had spent all that money for fancy signs totally forgot about us once we got out of baggage claim, and a tour bus operator wisely advised us that the best, fastest route was by train. Which made sense, because the train was packed. Gotta love public transportation in Europe.

We (well, Susan) had wisely chosen a hotel just two blocks from Termini, the main train station in Rome. Which meant that we were in our hotel mere minutes after arriving (with only a little confusion on our part about where the exit to the station really was, and therefore confusion about where the hotel was), and just around noon. I'd had a pretty good sleep on the Boston-Frankfurt flight, and felt ready to go. Susan barely slept, but she too was ready to go, so we put on or walking shoes and headed out the door to get the adventure underway.

Our introduction to Roman tourism was, of course, a church. A magnificent one at that. I hadn't even brought my camera with me. Then, some more walking, till we found the hordes of tourists frolicking at the Trevi Fountain. I always love the scene of people taking pictures of others in front of famous places (check out my visit to the Eiffel Tower five years ago). This was particularly eye-catching, was it was lit up at night.



Susan had also wisely bought a great little tourist guide for Rome – a series of six maps with “where to go” information on the outside that folds out to a larger map on the inside. Easy to read (big letters!) and easy to use. And it had a few restaurant listings, so we tried it out, and found a great place near the fountain, but tucked away so that it was reasonably priced and not overtly touristy. The deep fried artichoke and zucchini blossoms was terrific. I don't recall the rest, but suffice to say, it was Italian food.

It's all Italian food here. Not that I'm complaining. I like Italian food. And where else to get it but in Italy. Of course, I'm the one that never wants to get Italian food in Boston, because it's all over the place, and I can get it any time. And if I'm in another city, I reject Italian food because why would I get it in that city, when it's so good in Boston? As a result, even though I love Italian food, I almost never get it.

In Rome, there are three choices of food. Italian. Chinese. Kebabs. That's it. Oh, we saw a sign for one Indian restaurant, but didn't actually see the restaurant itself.

So, Italian food it is. There are three types of restaurants. Snack places that serve sandwiches, some of which look very good, and some of which look like airport fare. (Which isn't fair to the airport sandwiches we saw in Frankfurt, because those looked stupendous, and were not very expensive). Then, there's the pizzerias and pizzeria/spaghetti restaurants. Intended for quick meals, though some of these had full menus. Then, there's the real restaurants. In all cases, they all seemed to have similar menus.

As a result, it's pretty easy to choose where to go. We look at a few places and pick one that has reasonable prices and seems to be a happy place. This makes Susan happy, because she doesn't have to put up with my need to find the best meal in town at the best price.

Churches, sculptures, ruins. All larger than life. Unbelievable really. Trying to imagine society of several thousand years ago, so different, and in some ways so much the same as it is today. Lavishness. Poverty. The gruesome power of the powerful over the weak. Imagining how Rome took over all of Europe, parts of Asia and northern Africa, and how that translated into the relics we walked among. More to come, and see the Rome pictures.

Life Reduced to Three Bags

Last month was practice. Today (well, today three days ago) began the real thing.  The next ten weeks will be a combination of vagabonding around Europe and retreating in Provence.  Our road trip to Quebec – Saratoga - Oneonta and our sun trip to Saint Lucia gave us a sense of what we'd need.  The return through New York (plus Saratoga for Susan) – Northampton – Woburn allowed us to refine the essential contents of our lives to one suitcase of 50 pounds or less and two carry ons.

We'll be wearing these clothes and using this gear for the next ten weeks, so we were careful about our choices.  I ditched the all-purpose sport jacket that had been so carefully folded up in dry cleaner plastic for the last month, never used.  I really needed a light jacket though, and found a nice black microfiber one at Kohls, just up the street from our base of operations, the Red Roof Inn in Woburn.  With our house rented out, we camped out at the Red Roof Inn in Woburn, which became our base for organizing, reorganizing, packing, repacking, shopping, and taking care of last minute business.  This turned out to be a great spot, as the DSW shoe store, TJ Maxx, and Kohls were all nearby.

Also discarded was the heavy black work shirt that I'd been wearing over a parade of T shirts for the last few weeks (when not in St. Lucia).  Lighter button down shirts would be more versatile as the weather warmed.  New socks were needed.  And two new pairs of shoes – one all purpose black Rockports (Rockports are amazing) and one pair of simple open-toed no-back sandals that can double as slippers (and that I can wear with socks, like a real European).  It tried to replace my Merrel hiking shoes with a new pair, but they just didn't fit quite right and I took them back.  Merrels are also amazing, but the chemistry just wasn't there this time.  I was dejected, but I'll make do with the old Merrels.

I found that my repertoire of button down shirts was dark.  It was going to be spring for heavens sake, so I went back the closet and found the blue and white striped shirt that I wore almost every day the last time I was in Provence.  And found another all-purpose utility shirt from Old Navy in the palette of white.

Down to the wire, I had to come to terms with the camera gear.  I was pretty sure I wanted to replace my three-lens repertoire of the 18-55 and 55-250 Canon kit lenses with a single 18-200 zoom, but I'd been reading that the longer zoom was heavy.  I was sure I'd want to carry the 50 mm prime lens – I'd come to love that lens for its simplicity and huge aperture (1.4!).  I'd been dragging my manual Vivitar flash and wireless triggers with me over the whole trip, and hadn't used them once.  And I hadn't been dragging a min-tripod, but thought I'd regret it if I didn't – photography at night can be a revelation.  Finally, I was unhappy with my carrying system – camera and lenses tossed into a school backpack seemed like a recipe for disaster.

So off I went to Hunt Photo in Melrose, to check out the potential for a new lens and was treated to a good half hour of advice from Don about all of these issues.  I talked myself out of the new lens.  It was heavy.  And almost $700.  So I bought lens hoods for my two zooms.  Don talked me into the tripod instead of the flash, if I had to choose between them, and I agreed, but I ended up throwing in my Canon 380EX flash and pillow diffuser too.  Don's best advice was about carrying gear.  I really didn't want to buy a new bag, and I didn't think a new bag would do the trick anyway.  Don suggested that I probably had photo bag inserts lying around that I could fashion into some sort of protective system.  Or, buy some foam at a craft supply store to put in the bottom of my bag to cushion it.  I was all set to buy some foam, even traipsing around to Lowes trying to find some.  Fortunately, though, I didn't, and while rummaging in the basement of the house, found an insert system from the urban camera bag that I no longer used (and which Eleanor permanently borrowed to use as a purse).  It had three slots of perfect size – one for the camera, and one for each of my lenses.  It cradles the gear snugly and fits perfectly into my day pack.  And there's still plenty of room in the daypack for a jacket, food, guidebooks, whatever.  This is a much more satisfactory solution than the Lowepro backpack I have which has a great camera carrying section but very small section for the rest of my stuff.  Big thank you to Don for spending time with me to clarify what I'd need.

By the time I've posted this we've been in Rome for a couple of days.  Internet connections not as convenient as in the States, plus....there's lots to do!  Stay tuned for the Roman experience...

Time and Perspective

Ten days in St. Lucia and no time to write. Relaxing and sightseeing took up too much energy. Now, our bags are packed and we're ready to go. I can write about St. Lucia from with a little perspective.  (Check out all the St. Lucia Pictures)

We were based on Moule a Chique, a hilly peninsula that is the south tip of the Island, in a 6-room guest house called Villa Caribbean Dream. Most of the all-inclusive resorts are on the west (Caribbean Sea) coast, at least a half-hour drive from here. Moule a Chique is part of the town of Vieux Fort, a small port city, where the main attraction for the few tourists that are here is Anse de Sable, a beach that draws kitesurfers and windsurfers from around the world (well -- primarily Europe and North America).

Vieux Fort is dominated by poverty. The center of town is run down, but the buildings hint at a more prosperous past. Shops carry clothing aimed at the local market, convenience goods, some food, beauty products and other essentials. The few restaurants are uninspired. Street vendors hawk sweet potatoes, ginger, bananas, cinnamon. The chinese restaurant was a surprise, but by the time we got there one evening, hoping for dinner, most of the food was gone, and what was left didn't look too appetizing.