Summer Reading

“There isn’t anything to say about Venice (including this sentence) that hasn’t already been said.” This is a quote in a book about Venice by John Berendt, The City of Falling Angles, which is quoting two other people about Venice. I quote not to provide you, dear reader, with some prescient insight into Italy or Venice; at this time, I’m pretty convinced that our experience has been deeply personal, yet not entirely uncommon. No, I quote the quote that quoted the quip as a way of bringing up the subject of what I’ve been reading this summer.

A recent trip to Venice inspired a mass market paperback purchase of Berendt’s follow up to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Rachel had read it a year or so ago and proclaimed it to be “a good mix of history and gossip” and good summer reading. We had fallen under the spell of Vernice while we were there and so it was a fun read. Sometimes too much gossip and not enough history, but the parts that I was interested in I found myself totally engrossed.

For other reading on Italia I picked up La Bella Figura, by Beppi Sevegnini. The subtitle of this book is “A field Guide to Understanding the Italian Mind.” I had heard him on NPR a few months ago and he had some funny cultural insights. He’s a newspaper columnist for one of the larger papers here in Italy. He’s quite funny, very readable, and not entirely trustworthy. There’s probably a bit of truth to all of his observations, but not much to back them up with. Yet, I see what he’s talking about occasionally when I’m out walking the town. Still, another good summer read. Rachel and I are both reading this one simultaneously so it’s a hot commodity around the house.

While googling La Bella Figura, I stumbled across this:"The Italians", by Luigi Barzini. Looks similar and interesting, while maybe not as cheeky.

One more Italian thing before I move on. We are living at the corner of Via Canonica and Via del Inferno in the heart of Bologna's old Jewish ghetto which has now been enveloped by the University district. Dante attended the University of Bologna and even references the two towers around the corner from our flat in Canto ______ of the Divine Comedy. On the little Piazetta around another corner (the neighborhood is truly a labyrinth) there was this little street theater production that happened for about a week straight. The first night I stopped to watch, but it being in Italian I understood very little. What I did follow was that they guy who was supposedly leading a tour of the ghetto was interrupted by a "passer-by" who just happens to be Alighieri Dante. I figured that out by his 12th Century hat and shoes. For the next few nights I would pass the street theater but turn the corner and head home. I got into the habit of running into Dante waiting in the wings for his cue. I got in the habit of greeting him by name, or calling him Maestro. Considering how old this neighborhood is, I appreciated running into ole Dante night after night. It was cool.

So that got me thinking about The Divine Comedy, which I read many years ago and have occasion to talk to students about every now and then. I don't teach it but sometimes students choose to read it independently and when they do, they really want to talk about it. I picked the Penguin Classic edition with a new translation by Mark Musa, who incidentally is a Professor of French and Italian at Indiana University. I chose it simply because it had the least punctuation of any translation I had to choose from. The Library Journal described his translation like this: "Musa's translation is in fluent, colloquial verse that aims for the speed and rhythm of the original though not the form." It's the most readable version I've ever seen because it doesn't get bogged down with a lot of punctuation acrobatics. Stylistically, and in subject matter, it also reminds me of one of the best books that I've read this summer and possibly in years: Cormack McCarthy's The Road.

While The Divine Comedy imagines a poet's tour of hell and the path to salvation, The Road is a poetic description of a post-apocalyptic world full of horrors worthy of Dante's Inferno. Bleak as the world of The Road is, the idea of redemption is still alive in the form of promises. I have been a fan of McCarthy for years, count Blood Meridian as one of my favorite novels ever, and have been a little disappointed with some of his recent work. The Road is possibly as good as Blood Meridian. Astoundingly, it's an Oprah book. She even scored the only live televised interview with the famously reclusive author. You have to register with Oprah's book club to watch, but there are worst things in life. The Road is an surprising choice for Oprah not because he is an obscure, dense writer, but for those of us who know what McCarthy is capable of describing, it's hard to imagine the subject matter being palatable for the millions of Oprah viewers who are eagerly awaiting instructions. Or as the color commentary guys noted in the Tournament of books this year:

Kevin Guilfoile: Has anyone built a career the way McCarthy has built his? That respect is earned, man. Bleak and violent novel after novel after novel.

John Warner:It seems like only a matter of time until we see a Saturday Night Live skit with a baby being roasted over a fire.

If anyone followed the Morning News Tournament of Books this year it came down to The Road vs. Absurbistan, by Gary Shteyngart. The Tournament happens in March, of course, and offers ficition in a sort of bracket tournament of awesomeness. The winner is awarded the coveted "Rooster" award, named after David Sedaris' brother. I'm about two-thirds of the way through Absurdistan right now, and while I'm really enjoying it, it took a while to get going. It's a fun read considering all the culture mashup things I've seen this summer. (Currently I'm writing this in on a public terminal at an internet point and long distance phone place where the dominant language is not Italian, it's Arabic.)

Another great novel that I read recently was Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. I read Black Swan Green, his most recent book, as a possible classroom adoption for the school. I loved the book but the general consensus was that some of the language was a little too much for the community in which I teach. Feh. It was a great coming of age story and I was amped to read more. Cloud Atlas is like 6 novels all in one. David Mitchell is a talented writer who is able to nail voice almost better than anyone else writing today. Jason, the narrator of Black Swan Green, was one of the most authentic teenage voices I've read in a long time, and on top of that, it isn't even an older teenager: he's 13 for the entire length of the book. Cloud Atlas has 6 different voices and he nails each one. I highly recommend both of these books.

Finally, I plowed through Alan Furst's The Foreign Correspondent as soon as we got here. I bought it on impulse at the airport on the way out of Portland. I had been meaning to give Furst a go, but never had the time. It was a spy novel, or was it a novel about a journalist? Such a fine line when everyone is telling you secrets. Set in the Italian ex-pat community of Paris after the rise of the Fascists when Europe is poised to explode into another world war. It's thrilling, evocative, and a good book to start the trip.

I think that's it. As you could see from the photo at the top of the page, Rachel found an English version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I think that she would give it two-thumbs up. With some limited internet connectivity in our flat and a satellite dish that is scheduled for repair in September, we've both had a lot of time to read. It's been really nice. As the good people in my book club can attest, between work and grad school, my plate gets full of stuff that I have to plow through and don't get as much time to read for pleasure. We've been lucky because the English language bookstore is just around the corner (another corner) from our apartment. We brought a bunch of things with us but haven't had to rely on them entirely. Consequently, I think I'm going to be bringing home with me a very well travelled and thoroughly unread copy of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. If I don't read that book after humping it across Italy, I'm never going to read it.

La Polizia

La Polizia,

The Italians love their uniforms and considering the Italians’ contribution to world fashion, it’s no wonder. People in uniform in this country are both simultaneously sharp and scary. Cops in this county travel in packs of no less than three and it’s not uncommon to see five or more at one time. There are several layers of law enforcement around here. I quote from Bologna Inside (2^nd ed.) Everything You Need to Know to Make Bologna Home, by The International Women’s Forum of Bologna:

Memorize the following emergency numbers: 112 carabinieri (local police); 113 polizia (state police); If you want to report a disturbance such as noise, illegal activity or loitering, call the
vigili urbani (urban police) at 051.266626. If you call to report a loud party or other
minor public disturbance, the police may also stop by your house to hear your version of
events. The polizia municipale (city police) have an informative website in Italian for information on most safety issues.

So let’s see, that’s no less than four layers of law enforcement for the city alone. And don’t confuse La Polizia with the soldiers who are also around, or the specialty police forces like Guard di Financia. In fact, the only person who didn’t seem to get a uniform is the postman. I passed one the other day and thought he was just handing out menus for a local restaurant, but no, he was actually delivering the mail. I guess you don’t need much authority to do that.

Italians are so well dressed that you can imagine that their uniforms are pretty swank. They have fast looking pants with red stripes that tuck into their shiny boots, their shirts have lots of badges and labels on them, some of them get really cool looking hats. Their utility belts are often this white leather that makes such a clean line between the powder blue of their shirt and the black of their trousers, I can see why the fascists did so well here. Your basic peasant can class himself up quite a bit by slipping on a pair of jack-boots. If the Village People were Italian, disco would not be dead, of this I am sure.

The person in uniform who scares me the most is the train conductor. I’m rarely doing anything that would warrant the attention of anyone in uniform, except when I’m riding the rails. Conductors don’t have gun, but they do have this little hole puncher, which they wear in a holster on their belt like it’s a gun. When they approach you on the train you are seated and they are standing, which gives them the advantage. Then they ask you something in Italian, which you inevitably reply to in a way that tips your hand that you aren’t from around here. Then you hand them your ticket, which they don’t just look at and punch, but really look at. They look at the ticket, they look at you, they look at your ticket again. They raise one eyebrow. At this point, I’m usually pulling out my passport and wondering if I should slip a fifty Euro note in it. Then they pull out a pen (a pen!) and mark your ticket by hand, and finally they draw their hole puncher from their holster and punch your ticket, while simultaneously staring you in the eye, to make sure that you don’t morph into someone new as soon as he gives it the ok. The first few times it’s terrifying.

So in short, don’t mess with The Man no matter what costume he is wearing. He’s got the power and I am but a traveler in this land.

Note: It occurs to me that the current debate over school uniforms in America is misguided. Instead of having the students wear uniforms, maybe it should be the teachers. Except I’d want an Italian designer and some really fast looking pants.

Torino

After a full day of travel from Scanno, we arrived in Torino close to midnight. Exiting the train station the city felt alive and invigorating. But we were pooped out! Our cab ride to Hotel Alpi was straight from a scene in the movie Night on Earth. The cab driver, from all outward appearances at the curb, was a sweet lady in her early 60s. But put her behind the wheel of a car and she was hellfire. Whipping through lanes of traffic, smoking a cigarette all the while mumbling and cursing in both Italian and French. Coming from the sleepy town of Scanno, we were yanked back into the pace of a large city.

Arriving at the hotel we saw a street of nightclubs overflowing with people. We thought about joining them but once we were enveloped in the comfort of our hotel room, we decided that 1:00 am may not be the best time to plunge into this new city. Plus, the room was large and well air conditioned. Combine that with English language TV and a well-stocked mini-bar and we were staying put for the evening.

Torino (also known as Turin) is a bustling city in the Piedmont region, not far from France. People switch easily between both of these languages and the food and wine of the region reflect the melding of the two countries. Since Pat spent some time living in France he was excited to put his French language skills to work. And seeing how neither one of us had gotten further than a few basic questions and lots of superlatives in Italian, I was excited too.

One of the greatest things about this city is the porticos – covered arcades that allow you to stroll through the city in the shade.

And all of the Baroque architecture felt new compared to the ancient sites we’d seen for the past week. The Po River flows through the city and there are plenty of walkable bridges and the waterfront is lined with bars and restaurants. And there was quite a bit of activity on the water with rowing teams and people in kayaks.

Walking around on our first day we found the Palazzo Reale (the Royal Palace). The palace is undergoing massive restoration and can currently only be viewed if you go on a guided tour. We had just missed the last tour of the day but we returned the next day to take a peek. Since the tour was given in Italian, we both rented the audio guide and joined the group. For the next hour Pat and I strolled through this fantastic and ornate royal crib seeing quite a collection of art and architecture. It was awe-inspiring to see the precision in so many architectural items that were carved by hand. But these people definitely didn’t have rooms or furniture designed for relaxation.

Pat always likes to get a view of the city from above and we had a great opportunity to do that in Torino. We paid a visit to the Mole Antonelliana – it’s the monument symbol of the city. At one time the Mole was the tallest building in Europe. It’s now a museum of cinema, but they have installed an elevator that takes riders to the top. Like the Empire State Building there’s an observation deck that gives a panoramic view of the city.

One of our most memorable meals of the trip was at a restaurant in Torino called Porto di Savona. The waitress was great in guiding us through the regional specialties. From the antipasto misto freddo Piedmontese that included selections of pâté, seasoned raw beef and a selection of cheeses to the pasta dishes (gnocchi in gorgonzola sauce and house-made ravioli filled with beef and served with a lamb sauce) to our entrees (grilled steak and a Milanese dish) we felt like we made great regional menu choices.

Our second dinner in Torino will be remembered not so much for the food as it will for the zanzare attack. Zanzare may sound like some obscure regional terrorist group, but that’s actually the Italian word for mosquitoes. The most prevalent variety in Italy is the Asian Tiger Mosquito – an evil variety of bug that infests large parts of Italy every summer. While we were having a wonderful meal, the mosquitoes were literally eating me alive. When the waitress suggested dessert, Pat tried to bow out saying we needed to leave because I was getting lots of bug bites. Her response, “those aren’t bugs, they’re zanzare.” As if these little monsters belonged in a class of their own. She brought a bottle of the house mosquito repellent to our table (along with two cups of espresso) but I was already past the point of no return.

I woke up the next morning in misery, counting at least 30 bites on my legs, ankles and feet. The itching (and new bites) would follow me to the next city and I must have purchased every type of bug repellent I could find along with a huge supply of antihistamines one pharmacist prescribed. In addition to menu Italian, I had become fluent in pharmaceutical Italian!

When we were planning our trip, we knew we needed to find a city conducive to a long term stay. It had to be a city close to other places of interest (for day trips and weekend travel). Torino was a city we considered because it’s proximity to so many other countries. After a few short days, we agreed it’s a city worth spending several weeks in during our future travels. I’ll just have to pack lots of bug spray!

Scanno

The plan was to stay in Abruzzo for a week or so. We weren’t sure how long Sulmona would play out, so we looked around for another city to visit. Abruzzo is a very mountainous region that contains the single greatest area of National Parks in all of Europe. There is minimal train access but a very extensive network of buses that goes throughout. We weren’t going to be equipped for a proper trip to a National Park, but then again, we weren’t really sure what a National Park in Italy would actually be like. From my first trip to Europe I knew from experience that, as an American, my expectations were much higher than what the continent could deliver. Too many people, too much history. Our park system in American is truly one of our greatest treasures.

What we found is that the Abruzzo region is such a mountainous region and parts of it are so remote that there really are some world-class parks and wilderness areas. Our bus ride to Scanno, the remote mountain town that we decided to visit for a few days, made it clear that Italy has some territory that, if not still wild, is truly remote and undeveloped. There are a series of little mountain towns that populate its peaks and valleys, a landscape that look more like West Virginia than Oregon, and these towns are old. The medieval center to Scanno was built over 1000 years ago. The little towns that we passed through on our way there were at least as old. To an Americani who as a fifth grader celebrated the 25^th anniversary of the city he lived in, it takes some work to fathom.

Scanno has fashioned itself as a bit of a resort destination, but just barely. There is a lake, which we visited; there is a ski resort, which was closed (one of the attractions that had lured us was that you could ride the lift and hike the ridge – again, closed), and that was about it. Yet, after all we’ve done so far, Scanno holds a special place for us. It was a stony island in a sea of green that had been there for centuries. From the main piazza you could look out and see no other towns, lights, development, or other sign of civilization. Only forest. I can only imagine the isolation that people there lived through, the lack of information of the outside world, when they built the tiny little corridors of the city center. The solidarity the inhabitants must have found amongst each other. The way that knowledge was passed down from person to person. Somehow this place endured for centuries. It can only be since the advent of the automobile that people were able to get in and out with any sort of relative ease. I can’t even imagine how long it took for them to get telephone service. The isolation of this place was driven home when it was time to check out of our hotel. The communication with the banks was down. No credit cards were being run, no ATM machines were working. Luckily we were flush with cash and the buses were on time.

One of my favorite memories of the trip so far was when Rachel woke me up one night and showed me the Big Dipper framed in the window of our hotel room. The windows were those typical Italian windows which you keep shuttered all day long to keep the heat our and then throw open at night to let the air in. No screens, a few bugs, but that Big Dipper was so close I felt like it could have scooped us out of our bed and let is sleep in its ladle.

What else happened in Scanno? Rachel got me a poster of a wolf and a bear. I had been making small talk for the past few days with the good people of Sulmona about their wild animals. It’s a great conversation piece if you don’t speak the language to ask people about the biggest, baddest animals they have in their neck of the woods and then have them tell you stories about them. Even if you don’t know much Italian, you can imagine what animals do, and people have stories. I met a kid who was in a car that hit a wild boar just two weeks before. The boar was fine, but the car was damaged really badly. So I’d been asking all sorts of silly questions about bears and wolves and boars (oh my!) for the past few days. Rachel told the lady in the tourist office that her husband really likes wolves and would love a poster. I got one of a bear too. They are really cool. I’m going to hang it over my bed.

I’m sure that when we return to Italy we will make Abruzzo a definite destination, even if Rachel didn’t have family that lived there. It’s scenery is stunning, there is lots to do in the great outdoors, it’s not overrun with tourists (or Italians for that matter), and you don’t feel like if you aren’t staring at some fresco or statue you are missing the point. It’s the people, the landscape, the food, and the history that sold us, not the art. After being exposed to so much art in Rome, it felt really comfortable. We’ll be back every time.

Roma!

ROMA

OK. We're a little out of order since this is about the first 3 days we spent in Italy and Rachel's earlier post about Sulmona was about our 4th and 5th day, but non-linear narratives are so popular now, we think you'll be able to keep up.

On Arrival:

After flying for about 10-11 hours in which Rachel slept much and I slept not at all, we arrived in Rome. We had our first “small-world” moment before we even left the airport when talking with the people we were sharing a mini-van with on our way to the hotel. Her accent sounded familiar to Rachel, and it should have – the woman was from Lenore, West Virginia, a town of about 500 people near Matewan, which is Mingo County. Small world indeed.

The Hotel Piccolo was lovely: balcony, full bath, mini-bar, and located almost at the foot of the Spanish Steps. We thought we needed to rest, but were so excited to be in Rome, we took off to explore the immediate surroundings. First impressions: beautiful, crowded, and confusing to navigate. The beauty was undeniable. Ancient buildings and ruins side-by-side with newer ones. Our hotel was in a very old part of town, even by Roman terms, and the streets were very narrow indeed. There were churches that dated back to the 14^th century, buildings that dated to the 17^th century and the facades, at street level which once were probably full of artesian craftsmen were now home to a veritable shopping mall of high-end brand names like Gucci, Prada, and the like. It was odd to see the juxtaposition of old and new, but this was ground zero for high end Italian shopping. The things the Italians were most proud, or at least known for, were all housed within the same space; ancient architecture and modern fashion. The crowds were unbelievable. There were the Romans, breezing through the public areas and side streets with the grace that comes with knowing something intimately and being able to block out the inconvenient. There were the tourists, of which we added to their numbers, flocking in hoards to sit on the Spanish steps and wander around aimlessly. And then there was the traffic. I have never seen anything like it in my life. Lanes mean nothing, scooters zip around slower vehicles with reckless abandon, delivery trucks, whose sides seem to barely fit in the street itself all sort of swarm any available space to move forward. Consequently, there didn’t seem to be much congestion like at home. Vehicles moved into any available space, regardless of if it was in the right of way or not; the idea was to just move forward. Keep moving seemed to be the rule. Don’t get frustrated, just move ahead. Very interesting.

After walking around for a while we stopped at a café for a coffee. We had a quick tutorial on how not to order coffee, and then we decided that the best place for us in our jet-lagged, post wedding, totally geeked state would be the balcony of our hotel with a bottle of wine. So, we just needed to get a bottle of wine. Easy, right? Looking back, it shouldn’t have been so tough. Eventually, after finding a place called Mr. Wine (what do you think they sell there, Rachel?) and acquiring a relatively cheap bottle of Corsco, we started heading back to the hotel. The streets were winding, and in our quest to find what wound up being Mr. Wine, we weren’t exactly leaving a trail of bread crumbs. We’d left our map of Rome in the Hotel because we had only intended to explore our immediate surroundings, which technically was what we did. Eventually, we learned that the most well-marked store in Rome was the McDonalds one block from our hotel. Following the signs to that got us home and we retired to the balcony to have a glass of wine. Ipod out, tunes gently playing, wine open, we sat back to take it all in. I think we both fell asleep in our chair after the first sip.

So we retired to the bed for a siesta. Woke up a few hours later, asked the concierge at the hotel where we could get dinner and took his advice. Our first dining experience in Italy was nice at the time, but pales in comparison to what we have experienced since. Since Rachel is keeping a rather detailed food journal, I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say it was like eating in Times Square. Lots of atmosphere, not so great food. Ah well.

Day Two Roma:

Any thoughts we had of lazing around our hotel were trumped by the sheer excitement of waking up in The Eternal City. Most hotels in Italy seem very happy to include your breakfast with the price of the room. That’s because for as much as Italy is known for its food, nothing you would eat in Italy before noon is very notable at all. Breakfast almost universally consists of a cappuccino and a pastry. Or as Rachel put it sugary drinks and sugary breads. We had our breakfast on the balcony which was the nicest part of the meal. Then we hit the town.

First stop: the Forum and the Coliseum. We took the Metro there, which was fun. Nice to see trains still tagged up with graffiti. Big graffiti, like New York and Chicago back in the day. I didn’t think it looked like the work of gangs, just renegade artists on a moving canvas. Very cool. We got off the train and came out of the Metro and BAM! There it was. The Coliseum. I don’t think either of us was prepared for it. It was just right there next to the subway station. We scoped out the line and decide the Forum would be a good first bet. Plus the forum was free.

We consulted the map and also found a tourist info building where they had a scale model of the grounds. This was very helpful in helping us understand what all we were looking at. It’s hard to comprehend the Forum because there are actually several of them, all built over several hundred years, and in Modern Rome, they’ve put several multi-lane roads through them. After walking through the ruins we came to this gigantic edifice. It looked old, but we had to consult the map to see what it actually was. It was called National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II and was constructed in the early part of the twentieth Century. It was at the head (or foot) of Via del Corso, one of the main roads that goes across town and served as a sort of modern introduction to the ancient ruins that lie behind it. We climbed the steps and passed all of the military who seemed to be ubiquitous in Rome and from the top of this giant structure we had the best view we had of the city so far. From there we could see, from above, all of the different forums, the Coliseum, countless churches, several of the hills that Rome was built on and the area that our hotel was. It was wonderful to be afforded that perspective since we had been on street level or below since our arrival.

We descended and walked through the most ancient of Rome’s Forums, the one that existed before the empire rose and various Caesars began creating new Forums for the people in their honor. The actual street level of ancient Rome is about 40-50 feet below the street level of modern Rome, so down there is a stillness that no mob of tourists fresh off the Disney tour boat following their guide with the Mouse ears could disturb. We refilled our water bottles at the spring that still flowed on the floor of the ancient forum and decided that the Coliseum would have to wait for another visit. The line there hadn’t gotten any shorter since we had gotten off the Metro and we had both burned off our cappuccino and croissant and were thinking of pranzo (lunch in Italian, a very important word).

Our research had told us that there were a few open air markets that set up in some of the piazzas around town. One was at Il Campo di Fiori and a quick consultation of the map revealed that no Metro stop was anywhere near there, and we had yet to master the buses in town. It looked like it could be walkable, but we had no sense of scale in town yet, so we decided to give it a shot. Walking in Rome is one of life’s great pleasures, especially when you have no real destination. If you are trying to get somewhere specific, like a place that you want to have lunch, it’s necessary to consult the map about every block. One can get off track in a heartbeat, turned around in another heartbeat, and completely disoriented in a third if you aren’t careful.

The maps of Rome are interesting as well. The night before we left, I was reading a tour guide from about 1960 that someone had given me. It had a map of Rome in it, which was the most interesting thing to me. On impulse, I threw it in my bag thinking, “It’s an ancient city, how much could it have changed in 50 years?” I was right. While we had spent some time the day before looking for a new map, everything we found looked exactly like the map that I brought with me from home that was printed in the 60s. There were little differences, but they were subtle.

On the walk home from the Campo di Fiori we found both the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain, two more of Rome’s treasures. Both were no more than a 15 minute walk from the hotel. The Pantheon was cool, inviting, majestic, ancient, and surrounded by centuries of Rome encroaching in on its front steps. It doesn’t cost a cent to go in. There is a hole in the ceiling for god's light and rain to tumble in and holes in the floor for them to escape. The engineering involved in creating a place like that is amazing, more so when one considers what they had to work with. I think that the Pantheon has always been free: a decree from one of the Caesars who ordered its construction.

As amazing as the building itself was, I think we both appreciated the coolness and relief from the heat that it provided. There was a fountain nearby and even the sound of the water, almost inaudible over the chorus of voices of the people of Rome, was soothing and cooling. The largest fountain in Rome is Trevi Fountain, which was practically in the back yard of our hotel. We were there on several occasions, and never was there not a crowd. In the heat of the day, in the dead of night, there were throngs. We passed it for the first time at mid-day, noted its beauty and realized that we couldn’t get much closer than we were, so we decided to come back after dinner.

Dinner that night was one of my personal favorites of the trip. We retraced our steps back past Trevi Fountain, still crowded, and toward the Pantheon, now closed. We were looking for a trattoria, as we had heard that they were smaller, family owned places that were a little less formal than a full-on restaurant. How to choose, how to choose…. we settled on Trattoria Antonio. I think we were sold on the large ham hock on the table just inside the doorway. This was our first really great meal in Italy. As I said, Rachel is logging what we ate in more detail, so I’ll just say that we had a very long, completely unrushed dinner, in what sure seemed like “a little spot”. We were the last ones to leave the restaurant. A gelato finished off the night as we strolled around, not lost, and wandered back to the hotel.

Roma Day Three

I have a thing for public parks. I think you can fairly accurately judge the quality of a city by them. Great cities have great parks. Clint had mentioned the Villa Borghese as being aloft on a hill, breezy, uncrowded, vast and glorious. We spent a morning there. Brought the International Herald Tribune, walked around through the gardens. It was lovely. Never got the view of the city that I wanted, got completely disoriented on our entry to the park, did enjoy the break from the press of people, and the green space, both things that were so absent from the streets of Rome. We had a fine morning. For lunch, we wanted to try a new neighborhood. One of our tourbooks said that Trastevere on the other side of the Tiber was where the real Romans lived, so we thought, sure, why not. We figured out a bus line, hopped on and were over the river in about 10 minutes. What a difference! It was quiet, still, uncrowded, old, much more graffittied and just as beautiful. We decided it was like the Brooklyn of Rome.

I learned, inadvertently and with no negative impact to myself of a scam that is frequently run on tourists. At lunch that day (a light one of pasta) I went to pay with my American Express card. They said that when they tried to run it the bank didn’t recognize it. I was obviously concerned, but also most immediately worried about how to pay for my lunch. Luckily, between the two of us, we had enough cash to pay, which I did and I thought that that was the end, but the waiter and what appeared to be his mother, a lady about as ancient as the building that she was sitting in, were not done explaining to me that the problem was most likely with the magnetic strip on my card because it was not being recognized by the bank. They brought me over to the register and ran my card again and showed me that digital read-out that said that it couldn’t read the card. Then they printed it out for me. All of which I thought was a bit overkill.

When we arrived in Rome, one of the first things we saw, right down the street from our hotel, was the American Express office. After lunch, I told Rachel that I wanted to go there to see what was up with the card. We were to leave town the next morning, early, and I wanted to catch them before they closed. At the AmEx office, the first thing they did was verify that they didn’t run my card and that there wasn’t a charge on it. Oh no, there wasn’t I said. They couldn’t, so I paid cash. Then it hit me. That’s a great scam to run on the tourists. Run the card. Then tell them that it didn’t go through and have them pay cash. The woman behind the counter smiled as she watched me get it. Her eyebrows rose slightly and she nodded subtly. Lucky me. I asked about the other American Express offices around Italy. There are a total of three: Rome, Milan, and Florence. I got lucky again because they were able to give me a new card on the spot. Membership does have its privileges.

We left Rome the following morning. Seeing how all roads lead there, I’m sure I’ll return someday. It’s a beautiful city and I had a wonderful experience there, although I’m not sure I’m in a hurry to go back. I’m more curious about other places that this country has to offer. We took off on a Saturday morning at about 6:30 am. The city was the most still I’d seen it. It was both empty and lit by the sun. When I return, I want to remember that this was the only time that I felt like we had the city to ourselves.

We are family!

Pat and I just spent two day in Sulmona, Italy - my family’s ancestoral home. Some of my distant relatives still live here and since the center of town is a medieval village, I’m confident that much of what we saw is how my great grandparents Dominic Gentile and Anna Quattr0chi left it when they moved to the United States in the early 20^th Century.

When we arrived here, I admit to being pretty nervous about meeting my family members. I wasn’t sure how many family members still lived here, their ability to communicate in English or any expectations they had of us. I was pretty confident that after a couple of days in Rome, Pat and I had both mastered “menu” Italian, but that was about it.

We took a train from Rome to Sulmona – a small ‘burg with a population around 30,000 nestled in one of the Abruzzo region’s many valleys. It’s a dramatic three hour ride that goes through a progressively steep and gorgeous mountain range. Sulmona is best known in Italy for two things – it is the home of Ovid and it is also ground zero for “confetti” – the candied almonds that are enjoyed at many Italian festivities. There are several confetti factories and almost every store front sells confetti and lovely pieces of art crafted out of these candies.

After checking into our hotel, we headed out for lunch with the intention of calling the family on a full stomach. Our first mistake!

We were delighted to find that the restaurant the front desk clerk from our hotel suggested was a Michelin 2 star establishment and affiliated with Italy’s Slow Food Movement. After an antipasta of meat and cheese, a second course of pasta and salad and wine we were pretty full. Just as we were asking for our check, a middle-aged man and woman with a pre-teen in tow appeared in the vestibule. After one look at Pat, the man exclaimed “MC DONALD!” We established that he was Gianfranco Aureli, the son of the relative whose name and address I had been given and that his mother was waiting for us with lunch ready. Even through a messy exchange of broken Italian and English it became clear to us we were going to be eating again and it was probably best if no one mentioned our first go at the mid-day meal to his mother Anna.

We made our way to Gianfranco’s flat – a gorgeous place in an 18^th Century building downtown – where we collected his daughter Maria Elena. She became our life-line for the day. She not only spoke great English but had a pretty impressive vocabulary that trumped that of many 18 year old native speakers of English. Maria Elena is enthusiastic about the art, architecture and history of Italy and we felt fortunate to learn so much about Sulmona’s rich history from her over the course of our visit.

After piling five people into a tiny European car, we made it to the home of Anna Aureli. She is the sister of my distant cousin Livia who lives in Ithica, NY. I’ve met Livia several times but it has been many, many years since I’ve seen her.

As soon as we arrived at Anna’s food started pouring its way out of the kitchen – antipasta, bowls of ravioli, roasted meat, salad, fruit and cake and coffee along with at least three different types of wine throughout the meal. Then, at some point Nunzia (Gianfranco’s wife) determined that what we Americans needed was gelato. A quick trip to the store resulted in two types of gelati (one was a combination of cantaloupe, strawberry and lemon and the other was tiramisu flavored if you must know J ) and whipped cream. Of course, Pat and I were served large portions of both. Then, just when we thought we were done with this super sized meal, out comes the Limoncello and grappa. We were able to get by with only doing a shot of Limoncello at that point.

All through the meal there was much talk of our American family. Anna met my great Aunt Ann and Ann’s daughter Helen Ann some years ago and she knew that Ann passed away a little over a year ago. Although Anna has never met my grandmother or any of her offspring, she knew most of our names.

Anna had gifts for us (and of course we had left all of our gifts for the family in the hotel) – a wedding gift of placemats and napkins along with a lovely basket of flowers made of confetti.

After the six hour lunch (which was preceded by an earlier lunch if you recall) and lots of linguistic Olympics, Pat and I were exhausted from the day and decided to try to politely retreat to our hotel. Gianfranco and his family walked us back to our hotel. Along the way Gianfranco and Nunzia stopped to buy Pat and I a box of confetti and a bouquet of flowers made of candied almonds. Throughout the walk they offered several times to have a dinner of pizza with us if we liked. We politely declined and slid into our hotel room where we slipped into a deep sleep and food coma for the next ten hours.

We agreed to call the next morning as we were again going to have lunch at Anna’s after a walking tour of the town. Anna’s daughter Gabriela would be there with her husband and child.

We woke early the next morning and knew we needed some more tools to make it through the day. First, we both needed an empty stomach! Second, a few more Italian words and expressions needed to be memorized. And third, we needed props such as the gifts we brought, a crude rendering of a family tree I created, and pictures of my family to help bridge some of the communication gap.

After an extremely light breakfast of yogurt and espresso, we took a walk to the main piazza to grab a few minutes of solitude before another exciting day with my family. When I called Gianfranco around 10 a.m. he told me we should come now. We walked to his flat where we found his sister Gabriela, her husband Stefano and her daughter Arianna. Stefano immediately became another language lifeline for us. After a quick round of coffee cake and juice, we were off to see the sights of Sulmona.

Between Maria Elena and Stefano, we now had two interpreters to help us through the day. We began again at the Piazza Garibaldi which is a rather large piazza for a town the size of Sulmona. It also has an ancient aqueduct system in the square. Then we saw several churches and the museum of Sulmona and took a stroll through the park.

After such a light breakfast and all the walking, I was actually hungry at lunch time – which was a good thing. We arrived at Anna’s to find her there with her sister Philomena. They were both busy making lunch and Gabriela jumped in immediately to help. The meal began with a meat and cheese antipasta. Next we had a very lovely broth based soup with eggs and meatballs. It is one of my favorite dishes we’ve had so far on our trip. According to Stefano this soup traditionally also contains nettles but they’re not in season right now.

After a serving of pasta, we then had breaded veal cutlets with artichokes and salad. It reminded me of dinner at my grandmother’s house when I was young. Breaded veal cutlets were always a favorite. Fruit and cake were present yet again but this time Pat and I were both prepared and had taken smaller portions of everything else to save room.

During lunch Stefano and Pat began discussing food and their own favorite “manly” recipes to cook. Pat gave away all his secret tips for making great pizza on the grill and they swapped tips on how to make the best pasta carbonara. Pat made a definite impression when he exclaimed “dammi un cinque” (give me five) at the end of their bachelor recipe exchange.

Once the table had been cleared we were able to distribute the gifts we brought and I had pictures to show of my family back in the U.S. Anna and Philomena are both very knowledgeable about our family who live in the U.S. and were excited to put faces with names. I was also able to use the (very incomplete) family tree to help them further identify people.

They showed me lots of other family photos new and old (from my great-great grandmother to their own children). Philomena was kind enough to give me a photo of my great-great grandmother (who was also named Philomena) which I will treasure as a piece of my family’s past. Through interpretation from Maria Elena both Philomena and Anna explained how attached they feel to Williamson because they now have more family in West Virginia than they do in Sulmona.

They also explained that my great grandparents did not live in Sulmona but a really small place called Badia about five minutes out of the town. Philomena was insistant that we go to see it and meet her sister Teresa and other family members who were apparently waiting for us.

So, we headed to Badia where we learned about a hermitage on the side of the mountain there. They tried to explain that the only man who ever refused an invitation to be Pope had lived at the hermitage in Badia but details were sketchy and much seemed to be lost in the translation. I’ve put this on my list of things to google!

We met several more family members there. All of the family we spent the earlier part of the day with left us in the hands of Carmine, a distant cousin with some English skills. He took us to meet Teresa (another sister of Anna) who was quite a charming lady. She is a poet and a sort of independent spirit. Although we were approaching the twelve hour mark with family at this point, we were so thrilled we had the opportunity to meet her that day.

After two days of trying to piece so much family history together, Teresa gave us a glimpse of the Holy Grail – a family tree she has been working on for years. I was floored and astonished to see how much information she had gathered and somewhat shocked that no one else had mentioned it over the course of two days. We left with a promise from her that she would email me a copy of this document so I could help her fill in many of the State-side blanks and Carmine came up with the idea that we should try to include as many pictures of people as possible in the family tree. As we were leaving we found out it was the one year anniversary of her husband’s death so we were happy to have brought something positive to her day.

Carmine took us back to our hotel and we pretty much collapsed from exhaustion yet again. The next day we took one last stroll through Sulmona before catching a bus to Scanno – an ancient city (circa 1067) with dramatic views of Abruzzo National Forest. More to come on this amazing little town nestled into the nooks and crannies of a mountainside…

You'll find pictures of our time in Sulmona here - just click on the folder labeled "Sulmona".

Ciao!

Rachel