People always express surprise when I say that I have never been to Italy, but my visit this year was my first. Italy seemed expensive, so I cut my visit to a week. Venice seemed especially expensive, so I cut my visit there to three hours. Of course, I promptly fell in love with Italy in general and Venice in particular. Except for Rome. I was failing to fall in love with Rome even before my wallet was stolen on the notoriously thief-infested bus number 64. The wallet held only one day's spending money, fortunately, everything else was locked in the safe in my upmarket hotel room, but it was still upsetting - and embarrassing, since I knew the danger. After a good meal with wine in the atmospheric Trastevere district, and gelato (ice-cream) in the Piazza Navarone, my guard was down. I should have walked further and ridden the safer express bus instead.
My first stop in Italy, Stresa, was a complete contrast to Rome. I had wanted to schedule some quiet time between Barcelona and Rome, and with a convenient night train arriving in Milan (the less said about the train station in Milan the better) I picked the Italian lakes. When my cheap hotel room in Varenna on Lake Como became mysteriously unavailable due to "unforeseen circumstances" the only comparably priced room I could find was at the Albergo Luina in Stresa on Lake Maggiore, so I went to Stresa. In hot weather my single-no-bath might well be a hell-hole, but it was blessedly cool while I was in Stresa and I enjoyed the sliver of a lake view the room provided.
I arrived in Stresa to find the mountains a misty presence around the temporarily grey waters of the lake. I boarded one of the ferries in a spattering of the first raindrops in weeks, bound for magical Isola Madre. Over the centuries the Borromeo family has remade two of the islands near Stresa: Isola Bella has the baroque palace and 17th century Italian gardens, Isola Madre the 16th century palace and parklike gardens. Isola Madre also has free-ranging pheasants, Japanese hens and peacocks, including a pair of the first white peacocks I've ever seen. The gardens were calm and beautiful, with ever-changing lake views, the house was dark and atmospheric, furnished in the style of the 16-18th centuries. Old portraits hung on the walls, except in the prettily frescoed garden room. I particularly noticed an 18th century Countess, "admired for her learning by the scientists of her age".
Next day the sun was back out, and the forested mountains surrounding the lake were a little clearer, the waters a little greener. Instead of resting by the lake (along with a throng of day- trippers who arrived by coach), I took the local train to Domodossolo, where I caught the Circumvalli to Locarno for an afternoon in Switzerland. Since the three-legged trip (I returned to Stresa by boat), was arranged and well-advertized by the local travel agents, the Locarno-bound train was packed, but the Alpine views were worth the heat and crowds.
The main square in Locarno was also packed, but I had the 10th century castle to myself. In addition to displays of Bronze and Iron Age pottery and Roman glass, the castle shows off the room where the Treaty of Locarno was signed in 1925. While I recognized several of the dignitaries in the photographs I could neither read the Italian explaining the treaty, nor remember its importance on my own. The room seemed strangely rustic for such an important ceremony - long and low, with a wooden ceiling. I was also struck by the difficulty of reaching the castle up a steep path paved with unusually small cobblestones set at an acute angle. It occurred to me that if I was having trouble, knights in chain mail must have found the going even tougher - another form of defense, perhaps?
While I loved the lake - mountains and water, what's not to like? Stresa is overrun with tourists during the day and another time I might chose a less well-known place. The evenings were calmer, with only those staying in the elegant turn of the (19th) century hotels strolling the promenade, where, just past the statue of Victor Emanuel, the first king of a united Italy, I found a stylized rendering of the U.S. flag, a memorial to the victims of 9-11 from the people of Stresa.
I ate risotto two nights running in Stresa, and found that rice cooked al dente was harder than I thought. (The risotto I ate later in Rome was not nearly as good.) Moving on to Rome was more exciting than I had intended. I thought 10 minutes plenty of time to change trains in Milan, but the travel agent who sold me the ticket was doubtful, rightly, it turned out. Three factors allowed me to make the connection: the train from Stresa arrived at platform 10 and the train to Rome left from platform 12; the departure board with that information was right ahead of me as I got off the train, and, most important, as we neared Milan I walked through the Stresa train from second-class carriage number 8 at the back to first-class carriage number 1 at the front. I boarded the Rome train at carriage number 1, and only just reached carriage number 5 when it pulled out, so if I had started from the back of the Stresa train I would never have made it. (In general, Italian trains lived up to their reputation and ran late, but some of them started on time.)
Rome reminded me that I always preferred the Greeks to the Romans (except for the Spartans, that is, who were so very ... Spartan). Rick Steves calls Rome "brutal", "magnificent", and "required". Well, I'll buy required, if you go to Italy at all. Brutal, certainly in the summer sun. Magnificent? Yes, the Romans did magnificent very well. But what about admirable? I don't find the Romans particularly admirable. Hot baths and central heating - oh, yes! Aqueducts - yes. Good roads - yes, we're still using some of them. But all those legionnaires out defeating the "barbarians" and expanding the empire? Not so much. The Coliseum the tourists flock to see? Built as a killing ground, for men and animals. Many of the monuments? Built to cement the power of a current or future emperor, and recording the conquest of yet another people. Of course, I've realized that magnificent and monumental, like rococo and baroque, don't particularly appeal to me.
Rome also means Vatican City, of course, the world's smallest country. And that means the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica. St. Peter's is magnificent all right. I don't know whether Luther ever saw St. Peter's but surely that's all it would have taken to turn him Protestant. It's easy to see how a man occupying the throne of St. Peter in the middle of so much grandeur could imagine that he is the mouthpiece of God. For in-your-face, arrogant one-upmanship, St. Peter's would be hard to beat.
I had expected to enjoy the Italian lakes, but Ferrara was a welcome surprise. I picked it as a base for a day-trip to Ravenna as much for its good, direct, train connections with Rome and Venice as for its former role as the seat of the Este family and the long list of sights in the fat little brochure the tourist office mailed me (none of them must-sees). In fact, I liked Ferrara so much I nearly skipped Ravenna, which would have been a mistake. Although the town itself was forgettable, and the train ride, through flat countryside, slow, Ravenna's mosaics are truly magnificent. I'm not sure why I like mosaics so much, but I can't imagine anyone failing to be captivated by the brilliant colors and sheer scale of those in Ravenna. Byzantine rather than Roman, altogether Christian, their intricate artistry blazes across the centuries.
Ravenna has sights, Ferrara is a sight - a town that hosts tourists without becoming touristy - no little tourist train, no sightseeing bus, no visiting coaches - a place to kick back and imagine being an Italian without worrying about being run over by a herd of homo turisticus groupus (a subspecies that has been causing me considerable grief). The almost intact nine kilometer circuit of medieval walls still encloses the core of the town, the Este's castle-palace still stands four-square within its moat, and the narrow streets of the former Jewish quarter still enchant, with some houses built literally across the street on arches. Arches - arches are everywhere in Ferrara, along with shady arcades. So are bicycles, ridden by the locals around their very flat town. My B&B, the Borgonuovo, was also admirable, with helpful owners and homemade goodies for breakfast. I was sorry to leave.
(No, not with a person.) Three hours for Venice may sound crazy, but I figured it would be long enough for lunch and a vaparetto ride along the Grand Canal - long enough to decide whether this was a city I wanted to revisit. As my train approached Venice Maestro station I started to feel apprehensive, and as the train rolled over the long bridge to Venice Santa Lucia station the feeling intensified. Was I worried about visiting another city after the theft in Rome, I wondered? What disaster might be in store?
It seems the feeling signalled not disaster but significance, for at almost my first sight of the canals, bridges and palaces that distinguish Venice from all other cities I fell in love with the place. It's at the top of my current "must revisit" list.
My three hour plan worked well. After checking my luggage at the station I took a vaparetto to St. Mark's Square, then to the Rialto Bridge, where I ate at a nearby pub, and finally back to the station. St. Mark's and the Rialto were crammed with people, but, as I had read, far from the madding crowd was only half a block. Even at the Rialto, whose approaches were lined with souvenir stalls and shops (I could fall for some of the carnival masks but much of the glass is too ornate for me) just half a block away was a quiet square fronting the Grand Canal, with a small cafe tucked in one corner, virtually deserted.
So, I have to go back to Venice, but not in high summer: it was, like everywhere I've been since Coimbra, aside from Stresa, miserably hot. Early spring or late fall, I think, when the prices come down a little. Meanwhile I retrieved my bag and boarded the train for Ljubljana. Time for Eastern Europe!
Originally sent from Vienna, Austria, 2 Aug 2004
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