It has been a couple wonderful days. I can’t get online currently, so I’m blogging on Word, as Amy has been doing, and I’ll post when I can. Because I can’t get online, I’m not sure I remember when I last blogged, so this may contain some repetition. I’ll stick with yesterday and today, as that’s fresh still. Yesterday, we awoke at 4-something, in order to drive 3 hours or so from Fort William to Prestwick Airport. We were worried because we saw signs that the road was closed from "C__" south until 6am, and "C___" was just an hour south of us. We were leaving at 5, and had carefully given ourselves half an hour to make sure that any unforeseen traffic problems wouldn’t cause us to miss our flight. This meant that if the delay south of "C___" was any later than 6, we would be in trouble. There is hardly enough road in Scotland to have detours. Any possible detour would take us several hours out of the way. We decided to leave and hope for the best. An hour later, we got to "C___" and discovered that the southbound lane was blocked off. We turned around, looking for a detour sign. A car drove past us and up to the roadblock, but we couldn’t see where it went after that, as we drove around a corner. No detour sign was in sight. We drove back to the roadblock. It was quarter past 6. We decided to pass the roadblock, and 20 minutes later, a truck came toward us in the other lane…our first sign that we might make it through. YAYYY! Ten minutes after that, a "DMV" looking truck passed us, and we figured that they might be headed to pick up the roadblock. After an hour and a half of driving, we had finally passed all the sections of road that were being worked on, and 3.5 hours after leaving, we made it to the Airport without a hitch. We’ve had lots of such tense situations this trip, and so far, everything has worked out very well.
The flight from Prestwick to Bergamo was fine, though we finally worked out why it was so cheap. Ryanair charges for concessions, and they sell bus tickets and what not for your destination. The whole inside of the plane was covered with advertisements, and at least 5 times during the flight, the stewardesses went up and down the aisle selling stuff. But, I got a window seat, and for some reason the seat on the other side of Amy was empty, so we were pretty comfortable. We purchased a couple books in the airport (Cornwell’s "Postmortem" and Brown’s "Digital Fortress") and, except for an excellent view of the Alps, the flight was uneventful.
Arriving in Bergamo, we had a short tense moment, as we worked out which bus was going to the Airport…we didn’t know how to pay, and figured that we should get on and pay the driver before we got off. Nope. We were supposed to buy some sort of ticket before we got on, and when we got on we were supposed to get it stamped by an automatic stamping machine. (There were two such machines, one at the front and one to the rear of the bus.) Since we didn’t have tickets, we didn’t get them stamped, and probably, the Mafia is looking for us right now.
The trains are easy to work out… we took a slow train to Brescia, and a fast train to Venice (Very fast by the way…Very. It was quite amazing. I can’t wait until we have one of those in NY. Not that I have any reason to use it, but it sure would help with the whole Albany to Buffalo commute.)
So, Venice…what can I say. I didn’t think I’d like it as much as I do. I would not have thought that I’d come up with a phrase like this on my own, but I have to say that Venice is very romantic. It’s clean, fun, and quite beautiful. I love not having cars around all the time, and people are very nice and friendly. We had a couple interesting encounters with others, as we helped a poor lost New Yorker get "out of the maze" (her maps were not as good as ours, and she didn’t know how to read a map anyway…she said she was used to having her iphone tell her which way to go.) Later, we were drinking coffee on the Piazza San Marco, and a friendly older couple came up and wondered aloud if the café had a cover charge for seating. We told them no (we were right next to a couple other café’s which charged for orchestra music. This café has no orchestra, so it’s cheaper, but we get the same view and sound.) We ended up having a delightful evening chatting and people watching with them.
So far, we’ve seen a pleasant smattering of Venice…a couple churches and several other beautiful buildings, and the Rialto market where they had huge piles of fresh fish and fruit. In fact, we bought a kilo of sweet black cherries for 4 Euro, as it seemed a great price, and found that it was an even better price than we thought! That made most of our breakfast and a snack later as well. (roughly two quarts of cherries.)
Of course, the trip the Campanile was one of the most dramatic views. It’s about 80 feet up to the observation deck, the view was amazing, and the bells hanging over our heads were impressive. My favorite was the Basilica San Marco, which is almost 1700 years old. Very beautiful, and distinctly Byzantine in style. Amazingly, all the ceiling is covered with what looks like paintings until you look closer and realize that it’s all mosaics. And the entire floor is stunningly decorated with millions of pieces of marble in circles and squares all over.
Tomorrow, we are up early and off to Florence. Hopefully, we won’t be on the fourth floor and out of reach of the wireless.
Friday…in Florence.
Despite a debilitating headache which has made this afternoon quite difficult, I’ve just showered and am quite content, listening to "You’re the Storm" by The Cardigans. My mind is full of images of Galileo dropping stones and old men yelling Eureka! I know that’s not historically accurate, but somehow those things are connected in my mind. Pisa was a wonderful side-trip, and climbing the tower is something I never thought I’d get to do.
I’m very excited about Florence. It’s a city that crops up repeatedly in history books, and the thought of various famous medieval persons walking these streets is constantly on my mind. It’s funny how strange it seems to be dodging cars after just two days in Venice. It’s even more funny to find the right-handed driving weird.
Monday-still in Florence.
Having just read Amy’s blog entries (she’s writing every evening, despite our inability to access the internet.) I feel a little bit as though I have nothing to add. I only wrote a little blurb on Friday, and was not feeling well at all at the time.
Saturday and Sunday went much better. I only wish that we could have taken more pictures of the things we have seen. My studies of medieval history have been primarily of the English, and my grasp of Italian history is fuzzy at best. Nevertheless, seeing these great architectural masterpieces and the graves or memorials to Michelangelo and Galileo and Dante and so many other names that I recognize but can’t remember right now is fascinating.
Frankly, despite a growing appreciation for cities—largely due to the history which they retain—I’m still a country boy, and for the most part, I’m feeling a bit out of place here. Rows upon rows of houses evoke thoughts and questions on the quality of life which cities afford. The convenience of the local market—it’s variety and quantities of pleasures—hardly seem to make up for the lack of elbow room. I just spent my afternoon walking down the street with a black garbage bag on my head which at first was full of dirty laundry, and after an hour and a half at the Laundromat was full of clean, and never drew any awkward stares. (It’s very hard to navigate the clumps of people, the vendors, the mopeds, cars, busses, and beggars with a large garbage bag on your head when traveling down narrow streets.) Outside my windows, the sirens signaling an ambulance are going off…again. We hear them about 6 times a day, perhaps more. And thousands upon thousands of tourists mill about the city from corner to corner, like flies on a week old carcass. I can’t imagine living here. But, somehow, the streets are swept clean, the buildings are kept up, the lamps are lit, and constantly, money and goods exchange hands. Cities are certainly interesting, and Florence is first class.
Last night, Amy and I walked to the Piazza del Michelangelo, which overlooks the city, and caught a few fine photos of the sunset, along with a rather glorious vista of rooftops, towers, city walls, and houses bordering the river Arno. It was extremely entertaining. We bought a pizza and a sandwich, which we shared with a bottle of Chianti. We pulled out our books, and sat on some wide steps overlooking the scenery with about a hundred of our closest friends, all doing the same thing. Three contrasting groups stood out in the crowd, in between the various couples. One group of college kids, probably locals, who were enjoying the views and each other. They sat close, talking quietly and sharing. Another group of college kids, reveling in the cheap wine, hand rolled cigarettes and the newness of the scenery and each other (they seemed to be trying to figure out who was going to sleep with whom that night) were noisily singing and talking below us on the steps. And next to us, a group of six or seven young girls all dressed in fancy gowns and shiny jewelry were carrying bottles of white and pink wine. (The other groups all had red) It was a fascinating evening of enjoying the scenery and some highly entertaining people-watching. Amy and I came up with nick-names for several of the more active characters. "Guitar guy" was being courted by "brunette"—he liked her, but wasn’t sure how serious she was, and wasn’t sure he wanted to commit. Besides, "knockers" kept hugging him. But then, she was hugging all the other guys too. Meanwhile, "Curly" was making eyes at Brunette until he realized that she couldn’t see him as long as Guitar guy was near. He settled for Knockers until she went to hug someone else. It was all highly entertaining and made more so by the bottle of Chianti. We got several pictures of the sunset; of course, the camera didn’t do it justice.
Today, we went to the Mercado Centrale (central market) which is like the best grocery store ever. Tons of food: fruit, wet or dry; Bread, sliced or whole; Wine, red, white, pink; Liqueur; Cheese, hard, soft, moldy, great 30 pound wheels, or small wedges; Meat, in slices or chunks: Boar’s head, Fish head, tails, what-have-you. Anything you could think of was there. We even saw great bags of pre-mixed spices for pasta or soup or whatever.
This evening, we are going to our pre-arranged, semi-fancy dinner with opera…not sure what to expect, but I’m expecting a good time. Tomorrow, we leave for Assisi and Rome.
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