3/12/1999

We landed in Paris, after spending over a month in the U.S. and about four months in Costa Rica.    Compared to our arrival in London in 1997, when we began living in Europe, this landing was not quite as eventful, the future not quite the suspense it was then.  We have experience and I feel like I am going back home, home being Europe and not specifically Paris. I am not leaving 'home' behind in the U.S. to which we shall drive after a few days in Paris and Belgium.

Peg and I flew on Northwest Airlines via Detroit, landing at Charles DeGaulle Airport.  It was our first visit to that airport.  A free shuttle takes you to the train, and the train takes you to the metro at Gare du Nord for about 40 francs.

We made our way to the Villa Hotel, 30 rue de la Felicite, in the 17th Arrondisement, not too far from Montmartre.  Friends Vicki and Paul, living in Montmartre, helped us find this place and reserved a room with shower (toilet down the hall) for 139 ff (about $23).  We once stayed in Paris for about $15 at a place called the Bijou.  That was about 14 years ago.  It was a dump.  I hoped that this place was not so bad.  Vicki and Paul had recommended it so I was confident that it was o.k.

We took Metro Line 3 to Wagram.  Dragging our large back bag, whose wheel was damaged on the airplane, and carrying the rest, we walked about two kilometers in total.  A street we took is named 'rue Jeoeffrey Abban'.   A sign said he was the inventor of 'navigacion de vapor'.  We managed to find the Villa after a few false turns.  There was no one at the front desk.  The 'desk' did not appear to have been in use for quite some time, as there was no registry nor other accoutrement one might expect to see.  After about 20 minutes, another guest wandered by, asked of we wanted a room, and then knocked on one of the doors.  From another door, a female employee entered the narrow hallway.  At last, someone who could get us checked in!  However, she had no clue about any reservations.  They do not take reservations, she explained.  But she managed to find us a room, it seemed liveable, the place seemed quiet, and we were glad to be able to rest a bit.  Since there was no shower or bathroom, we got the room for 90 francs (about $15).  I am amazed that you can find anything inhabitable in Paris for this price.

This place needs a sign reading, Under New Management, with the 'New' crossed out and replaced by 'No.'  Well, I mean no criticism of Vicki and Paul, since after all we asked for an inexpensive place to stay and they obliged.  They had some friends stay here for a month, so it seems that once you do get a room, they probably can manage the rest acceptably.

Peg called Vicki and Paul, and arranged to meet them at their place.  Walking the two kilometers or so, we find their street and apartment, and meet them in the flesh for the first time.    They (or was it just Paul) wrote a book that helped us retire early.  The title is Cashing in on the American Dream.  Peg had forgotten its title and found it and, subsequently, them via the internet, while we were in Spain.  We have been corresponding since then.

The four of us spent about four hours together.  Peg and I enjoyed their company.  Their apartment is excellently located, attractive, and they have a good landlord to boot.  They showed us where Picasso and other famous artists stayed when they lived here, and the headquarters (the French as opposed to the world headquarters, I think) of the Jesuits.

The Parisians think Sacre Cour, which sits at the summit of Montmartre, is ugly and hope it will fall down, so maintenance is neglected.  Peg says it is Byzantine in appearance and not at all French-like.  Joan of Arc and some crusader looking man stand on the roof, looking important and especially determined.  The view from here, at least, is magnificent.  The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Les Invalides where Napoleon is buried, and more.

Paris' weather is unusually pleasant.  Vicki said that this is the first good weather of the year.  Paul said he likes warm climates and this is  the warmest he recalls since they arrived about a year ago.  Even last summer was cool.

The hotels were booked in the area, Paul said.  There must be a large convention or two. A friend from Argentina is coming.  Paul reserved the only hotel he could find at $185 per night.

This arrondisement has long been popular with artists.  Paul thinks it is because the police do not enforce prostitution, drug and other vice laws as vigorously here.  This came about because MontMartre had some form of self-rule.  When the Paris police took over, they thought of it as a step-child.

Vicki said that they found their apartment through the classifieds.  She said that people here prefer to rent to foreigners.  It is very difficult to evict a native, but foreigners have fewer rights and are easier to remove.  I wonder if this might be the case in Italy, too.  This is the kind of thing that is hard to find out about from abroad.

3/13/99

After having some great cappucchino from the machine in the lobby, and some items we bought for breakfast yesterday, we headed out the door.  Peg and I want to see the Port de Plaisance, the Seine and the newly cleaned Notre Dame.  Just a wee bit of a walk from our hotel here on the German border.

We walked through parks when we could, but the streets were still quiet as it was early and this a Saturday.  We got to the Champs d' Elysses and proceeded to the Seine.  The river now moves swiftly, and is flooding its banks, but is well below the containing walls protecting the city.  Barge residents have to wade through a foot or so of water.  Some use a dingy.  In one a woman and her dog were pulled by her husband wearing waders.  Electrical plugs seem to be under water but are still in use.  The boats may soon have to retie or move, as the docks against which they rest are under water.  Some use planks to keep the boat from floating over the docks.

We ate lunch in the Latin Quarter.  Couscous cost 40 ff (about $6.50), 48 with dessert, drinks are extra.  A beer cost 18 ff ($3.00).  This is the going price for most lunches and dinners, and the beer is also about what I paid last night.

After lunch we wandered toward Notre Dame.  As we rounded a corner, there was Our Lady stunningly white in the spring sun, recently groomed (I hope the Virgin forgives my choice of words) in time for the millennium.  We have never seen it so beautiful and entirely free of scaffolding.

As we entered, Oma was recruiting for her English tour so we joined her.  Her accent and appearance remind me of Henia, a woman of 80 years when I knew her.  Everyone called her Oma.  Even she called herself Oma.  Oma spoke English very well.  Today's Oma had an accent identical to Henia's,  thus I was not surprised to learn that she was Austrian.  The tour is free.

Oma sits us on benches to lecture.  The choir and the organist are practicing.  She tries to squeeze some words in when the musicians stop.  She tells us she has this problem every Saturday afternoon, and to no avail has implored the leadership to change the time of her tour.  The organist appears to be watching Oma.  He stops for a moment and just as she starts to talk, he starts again.  Or so it seemed.

Oma tells us that "Gothic" was originally a term of derision, referring to the Goths, or Germans, considered barbarians.  Oma said in the 17th or 18th century the architecture of Notre Dame was out of favor and it was then the style became known as Gothic.  The church came into such disdain that it was used to store salt in the 17th or 18th century.

Notre Dame is a five aisle church.  It is owned by the government, the local government, I think.  This ownership resulted from the confiscation of Church property during the Revolution.  The Church pays the priests and nuns, but the communes pay for the care of the buildings.

One of the towers has a room once used for those who had obtained asylum.  This is the only factual element in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, she says.
In medieval times, if you were running from the authorities and reached a church, you could not be arrested.  You had to stay a certain period, a few weeks or months I don't know which, after which the statue of limitations expired and you could go free.  You lived in the room in the tower.

During the French Revolution, famous statues adorning the Church were removed and beheaded by the revolutionaries.  They thought that the works represented French kings.  They were in reality representations of Kings of Israel.  In our century the heads were found laying face down, buried in the style of the Jews.  The Jews had rescued and buried the heads.

During WWII, the German commander ordered the removal of the mighty rose window on the north side.  Potential targets were located on that side of the church.  People of the church later wrote to him to thank him for having saved the window.  One day a child of his was in the audience when she told this story.

The thorn crown of Jesus is supposedly stored here and is brought out once a year for people to kiss.  It is in a glass case and is not itself kissed anymore.  Henri II, or maybe Henri I, bought the crown from someone in Israel.  He gave the thorns to French bishops and thus the crown has no thorns.  It is partially covered in gold.

The church is on the site of two earlier churches that were torn down after some 800 years.  I think that this occurred in the 12th century, as Notre Dame was started in 1146.  Some of the limestone used to build the church came from the site.  To get at the rock, they dug a ramp.  This ramp and the areas tunneled under the Seine became part of the Metro.

We walked back home. By the time we arrived, we had walked 12 kilometers.
 
 

3/14/99

Yesterday's outing being insufficient in length and ardor to completely ruin my fragile knee, today we walked to the Hippodrome.  Grooms are walking horses around in preparation for the races.  A vendor selling merguez sausage on a baguette gets a happy customer in me (16 ff).  Excellent and copious.  Later, Peg had a sandwich near the Eiffel Tower for 30 ff, lousy and skimpy.  I told her to have a merguez sandwich but she wouldn't listen.  I am sure she will follow my advice on all matters from now on.

Later we joined Vicki, then Paul and their friend from Argentina.  Vicki has made us wise in the ways of the French, who know how to chat for hours in bars and cafes.  They order an espresso, not a cafe creme, not a cappucchino.  Espressos are half the price (11 ff) and with sugar, they taste great!

Later just the two of us had dinner at a very attractive bistro.  They served a marvelous, thick, garlicky tomato sauce to put on bread.  The waiter expertly presented Peg's trout and my chicken was among the most flavorful I have eaten.  About 70 ff.

3/15-17/99

We walked to get the car we had prepaid in the U.S. and headed for Belgium on the back roads.  We ate lunch at a picnic table by a canal, enjoying the spring weather with our food and wine.

Peg's cousin was waiting for us in Belgium.  She laughed about our calling them from Madrid last year.  'Don't wear anything fancy tomorrow.  We are going to a cabin without running water or a toilet."  They loved the trip, the book they bought is beautiful and sits on their table.  Dani's Lamberghini (spell?) sits on blocks, all stripped, the frame repainted, engine ready to reassemble.  Drawings he uses to help him reassemble sit in various parts of the car and garage.

We leave Wednesday, planning to take up to a week to get to Rome to commence our search for an apartment for the next six months.  As usual, we have been told by the few people who seem to know anything that no one wants to rent an apartment for only six months, and you are stuck with high-priced, short-term rentals.  The ones we have found on the internet and elsewhere have been from $5000-2000 per week.  Also as usual, I am anxious about our prospects.

Our first stop is Bastogne, where there is an impressive memorial to those who fought the Battle of the Bulge.  The octagonal monument gives an account of the battle.  Peg's father fought in this battle, and here he met Peg's mom while passing through her hometown.  My father probably played a role, too, if not directly, then indirectly, as he delivered supplies during the invasion of Europe.   This is a quiet place, a solemn one.  It looks out upon a now tranquil countryside from a slight height.  It is our second visit here and it is no less impressive.  We are the only visitors.

That night we stayed in Epinal, a beautiful town on the Mosel.  It reminded me of Montpelier, with its streets of marble and all the recently remodeled and cleaned buildings.  Along the way we stopped in Luxembourg to get fuel.  The cost is a third lower than in France or Belgium, and it is not out of our way at all.

3/18/99

Since we are travelling the back roads through northeastern France, WWI graveyards and monuments that dot the area.  We navigate from town to town, including Vasoul and Basan‡on, after which we see a sign for a gite.  A gite is a hotel on a farm.  It is a kilometer or two off the small road we are on, in a small village called Aubonne, which has a dozen or so houses.  Caec Du Chateau, Lombardt IXV, 25520, Aubonne, France (03-81-69-90-56) offered a large, recently remodeled room on the second floor (the first floor, in Europe) for 230 ff (about $40) and dinner for 70 ff per person ($12 each).

The building was built circa 1700.  The back half is a barn, half the front is the gite, the other the family's personal residence.  There are three rooms in the gite.  There is a large central room on our floor, through which you pass to descend or ascend the stairs.  We are the only guests staying the night.

The matronly, mid-50's woman who greeted us suggested that since it was only 3:00 p.m., we should visit the source of the river Loue.  It emits from the mountains nearby.  After only about a twenty minute drive, we arrived at the car park.  A walk to the source is about 20 minutes down hill.  At the bottom you see the magnificent sight of a river spewing out of the side of a mountain.  There is a series of underground channels that bring water to this spot from the River Doub and another source whose name I do not recall.  The connections were discovered when a large quantify of some pollutant was dumped in the Doub and later came out of the mountain here.

The same woman serves dinner, and eats with us.  Her husband had already eaten, tired from a day on the tractor.  We had a creamy soup, a cheese pie with a flaky crust, salad and a sausage.  Everything is from the farm.  "Comte" is the name of the cheese in the pie.  For a beverage, we have all the red wine we want.  Toward the end of dinner we are joined by Victoria, her fiance and her sister.

Victoria, it turns out, is the proprietress of the gite.  She is in her mid-twenties.  The friendly woman is her mother and her parents own the farm.  The parents have retired and the brother runs the farm, apparently with help from his father, and I bet from his mother too.  Victoria started the gite three years ago.  She had graduated from business school (hotel management) and decided she wanted to something small which did not take up all her time.  She spent about $5000 remodeling (materials only) the gite, which needed to be wired, plumbed and furnished.  This sounded like too little but that is what she said.  They did the labor themselves.

Skiing in the Swiss Alps is only twenty minutes away.  People stay here as it is cheaper and more home-like than in the many commercial lodges.  They also have business in the summer, and get referrals from the association of gites.

3/19/99

Breakfast at the gite includes bread, plum and raspberry jams, and honey, all made here, and lots of coffee.  The coffee cups are the size of Mars.  Fortunately you can use the tractor to lift them, if you wish.

Rain and gloom has set in for our departure.  We head into the Alps, seeing a few snow flakes before the clouds lift.  The roads narrow and throw us through many switchbacks ('s' shaped turns, used to ascend or descend  steep roads, which I explain for the sake of my foreign readers, who may not find this term in their dictionaries).  Mt. Blanc is visible.  We buy lunch from a friendly, talkative woman who tells us that winter lasts seven months here.  As we eat lunch in a park, the sun breaks through to warm us and the four to six foot banks of snow on either side.  We must be in the land of the cheese pie, for that is what we have for lunch today; it is very similar to the one we have for dinner last night.

In the afternoon we come to Grenoble, in the valley but high still.  On our right, two waterfalls drop hundreds of feet against the mountainside.  We find a hotel in a small town outside Grenoble.  The hotel is new.  It is cold when we go for dinner, and even colder when we return home, but the weather remains clear.  We see the nearby steep mountains and the high waterfalls in the light of the moon.  The quiet of the valley makes the cold sharper, suggesting a loneliness that a freezing couple might feel when lost in the dark among these snowy, forbidding mountains.
 

3/20-21/99 Saturday

On the 20th we reached the lower elevations of the Alps, and are in a precipitous gorge.  The windy, slow road gives hundreds of stunning views as we descend.  The earth looks bone dry, desert-like. There are many pine trees but the grasses are brown, and there is precious little other vegetation.  Provence is said to be hot and dry in the summer, and it certainly looks it.

We stayed in a Logis named 'Casini' just outside Nice (160ff).  Like other Logis we have seen of late, the rooms in this one are a little tired, but clean and comfortable.  We ate at a small place across the street run by a married couple.  They served us stuffed mushrooms and tomatoes, steak and trout, all tasty and attractive.

Sunday our destination is San Remo on the Italian Riviera, where we hope to turn the car in, contrary to our original plan of doing so in Monaco.  However, the rental agency is closed by the time we arrive.  On the way there were mountains, more stunningly beautiful gorges, then the sea and the Italian Riviera.  In Bordighera, a little closer to France than San Remo, we found Albergo Lora (L 65,000, about $37).  It is a delightful little place, beautifully tiled floors and bathrooms.  I used my Italian for the first time.  I understood most of what the proprietress said and she seemed to understand me.   She suggested places to eat dinner.

Later we drove to Monaco.  The coastal road is magnificent and slow going, even in light traffic.  Monaco is tiny.  You could walk from one end to the other about than thirty minutes. The city-state is beautiful like an upscale shopping mall, and there are attractive buildings on every inch of ground.  Multi-story apartment buildings jut high into the air but are below us as we descend.   The casino is magnificent.  Large yachts predominate in the marina, yet there are quite a few lesser vessels moored with them.

After returning to Italy, we looked for our hostess' dinner suggestion but it was closed, as were most places.  We found a tiny place that only the locals would choose when they were looking for a good, inexpensive place.  They had a sizable menu in Italian, and nothing left at 8:30 p.m. but one serving of lasagna, pizza, a vegetable of the day and salad.  So that's what we had.  We were not disappointed, especially with the garlicky greens they served.

Pizzas in Italy are plain compared to what you can get in the U.S.  They often use wood-fired ovens, so the crusts are normally good.

03/22/1999

In the morning we returned the car in Monaco.  From Monaco a train goes to San Remo, but you have to change trains at the border.  A few hours is all it takes to be on our way in another car.  Our journey then takes us back into the mountains and through dramatic scenery, as well as tunnels and bridges marvelously engineered by the Italians.  We drove to La Costa degli Estruschi (Coast of the Etruscans, who were predecessors to the Romans).  The coastal towns are largely vacant during the winter, but in Cecina del Mare we found the Albergo Aurora open (L70,000, about $40).  Fortunately their restaurant was open also, as most others in town were closed.  It sits inches from the surf, which is pounding away as we eat.

This area is popular with Germans and other Europeans, and with Italians.  It is not far from Rome, and the highway tolls are low.  The tolls from the Riviera were about $20.  Given the tremendous difficulty of building the many tunnels and bridges through the mountains, the charge was well justified.

3/23/99

Through the coastal plains to Rome takes about three and half hours on the excellent highways.  We passed the airport and made our way to the south side of the Eternal City.  Around noon we took Exit 27 from the GRA (Grande Raccordo Anulare), the highway that circles Rome.  We found Via Cristofo Colombo after a few miscues.

Almost all phone booths require a card, so we found a Tabaghi (tobacco shop, which sells all kinds of little goodies and usually has a bar).  At first we could not the phone card to work.  We were not sure if it was the phone or the card, as the read out showed that there was no money in the card.  I told the shopkeeper that there seemed to be no money in the card.  He showed me what the problem was:  you have to remove a particular corner before it will work.

Peg made a call and we had a place to stay for a few nights, at least, at Albergo Home Michele,  mentioned in Let's Go.  The owner lives there and you pass through her living room to go to your room.  There is a kitchen in the living room where she cooks for herself and her husband. The albergo is conveniently located, near Termini, the main rail and metro station in the historical center of town.  Peg also called an agency that rents apartments, was also mentioned in Let's Go.  They had a prospect for about L 1,000,000, about $600.  That's encouraging.  Maybe Rome is affordable after all.

By 2:30 we had navigated in heavy traffic through downtown Rome, found the albergo, and returned the car.   I felt comfortable driving.  You just have to understand the rules.  There are only two 1) whoever arrives first has the right of way and 2) the timid never get anywhere and are a safety hazard.   Maybe there is a third:  big vehicles going too fast have the right away.  But in town this situation does not seem to arise often.  You seldom get about 50 kph (30 mph).

That evening we peeked into two Irish bars, both with barely visible signs and neither offering any food.  Just beer, peanuts and crisps (what they call potato chips in the UK and Ireland), said one bartender with a strong Irish accent.  He is only slightly easier to understand than the Italians I have met.  The small, dark, narrow bars seemed like a good place to practice English and quaff a few stouts.  We walked the streets, looking at Renaissance palaces and a mighty basilica or two.

When we return to Home Michele, the proprietress has made dinner: an aromatic tomato sauce with small fish.  Too bad she won't cook for us.

3/24/99

A copy of "Wanted in Rome," a small bi-weekly newspaper in English, yields about 75 ads for apartments.   Before long we have our first appointment to see an apartment this evening, and two more are arranged for tomorrow.  The first is a studio near a metro stop, and the ad says it is for foreigners only.  Later we visited an agent near Termini but she had nothing but high-priced, short term apartments.  She spoke little English so we used Italian.  Peg does not say anything in Italian yet, but sometimes she can pick our words when I can't.

We met Gabriella and her husband, Pietra at 7:30 p.m.  She speaks English very well.  She told Peg she was a "blonde one" and indeed she is, and a tall one too.  They are very friendly.  We walked from the Punto Lungo metro stop where they met us to their apartment.  It is on the 7th floor with a view of Saint Giovani in Latimer and the dome of St. Peters.  The rent is L 1,300,000, about $780 per month.  There is a large bath, and the place seems well equipped.

A door we had not been through stared at us.  Peg asked what it led to  and Gabriella opened it.  It was a bedroom.  She said we could use it but it was not properly furnished.  The sofa in it was worn out.  Various things were strewn about.  But it made the place much more worthwhile to us.  I wanted to say right then, "We'll take it."  But it was the first place we had seen.  We told them we could let them know the next day.  We needed a chance to talk and this was the first place we had seen, so we wanted to wait.

3/25/99

We saw two more apartments.  One is much more attractive than the one we saw last night but it is much less conveniently located.  It is L1,200,000.  The agent's fee is one month's rent, whereas there was no agent fee for Gabriella and Pietra.

Another place is a converted tool shed in the courtyard of an apartment building.  It is cleverly done but is also a studio.  There is a terrace.  Peg thought it was ugly and would be noisy, since the first level of apartment windows were just above our heads.  Six months is acceptable to the landlord and the agent only charges 1/2 month's rent.  There are many cafes nearby and sufficient shopping.   It would do in a pinch.

There is at least one good restaurant very close by.  People come in and help themselves to antipasto and pasta in a tomato sauce.  Several older men talk in that hoarse, Godfather voice that only Italians seem to have.  The waitress did not arrive until 12:15 to take orders but soon she had things in shape.  She even got the chef to get up from the table, where he was talking to friends, to make me some gnocchi.  Later he brought me some mushrooms, on the house, smiling all the while at us.  What a guy!  And what a great spinach with garlic he can make!  But he did make us late for our appointment.  Our agent knew the place.  It was among her favorites and said she knew why we were late.  She appreciated our having called her office to let her know of the delay.

Later we called Gabriella and Pietro to say we would like to rent their place.  She said that they have another prospect, which we guess meant someone who wanted the place for a year rather than six months.  She said she would call back at 1:00 p.m.  When she didn't, I decided that they had rented it to someone else.

We felt we had to choose among the ones we had seen.  The remainder of the ads in Wanted we eliminated for various reasons, and there wasn't another issue for two more weeks; further, we weren't aware of any other sources for rentals other than agents.  The weekend was upon us and agents would not be available.  So we called and told the tool shed agent that we would like to take her place.  The agent, from the U.K., said she had to confirm the arrangement for six months with the owner, who was in San Francisco.

We were not sure if the other place we saw would be available for six month period.  When we call the agent, Francesca, she said she would have to contact the owner about these matters.  We not only wanted a shorter term, but to have all the utilities and the phone put in the landlord's name.

So we are in limbo.  Maybe we will have to stay with Home Marie for a week or more.

When we first arrived, Peg told Home Marie that we were looking for a place to rent for six months.  Just now she told us, in Italian, that she has a place she is willing to rent, which she has not advertised.  She and her husband are thinking of moving there, but if we want it for only six months, it would be perfect.  They would have that time to sell the Albergo and move after we leave.  Late in the afternoon we climb into her tiny Ford Ca, after she finally found it, and zoom through Rome on two wheels, honking and tail-gating as we go.  The woman is fearless and she knows the rules.  And everyone knows she knows, and they don't mess with her.  My kind of gal!

Her apartment is a little less expensive than the others, is tiled everywhere, and filled with black enamel oriental furniture.  The other decorations are exquisite and the kitchen is slick.  Unfortunately you need a car to live here, which is on a hill in an isolated section of the EUR area of Rome.  The nearest shopping is about 1.5 km, and there is no shopping of any sort, and no place to have a coffee, in the apartment complex.  Thus, there is no street life.  Only one bus comes nearby.  In Rome, bus service at night is often slow.  They always come but you may have to wait for thirty minutes, we are told.  She is glad to have the utilities in her name.  Sadly we decline her offer.  All the dialogue is in Italian, with a little French thrown in when we're stuck.

Getting a phone requires a bank account, the payment of a $200 installation fee and a deposit.  To open a bank account, you have to get an identifying number from the government. It is better for us to rent from someone who will keep the utilities and phone in their name.

Two days ago we found an internet cafe near Termini.  Emilia will be here this Saturday, and she is bringing a friend.

3/26/99

It rained all last night and the streets this morning are filled with men selling umbrellas.  We dashed through the wet streets, visiting two English language book stores with bulletin boards.  Neither had much of interest.  We ate lunch nearby at a cafeteria in the basement.  Upstairs there is a bar and it is hard to know that there is such a large place down below.  We figured it out only after passing it often, seeing larger numbers of people going in and out than the visible space would allow.  There are no signs telling you about it.  They have meats, pastas and a wide-variety of the wonderful vegetables that the Italians can prepare better than anyone.  There is no table service.  At noon, we are the only ones there.  By 1:00, the place is full.

When we returned home to Home Michele later,  Gabriella had left a message with Home Michele.  Peg called back, using the phones in the large, street level room filled with booths, where we had been doing all our phoning.  She offered us the apartment and said we could move in tomorrow afternoon.  Peg hurried to tell me, and left two phone cards behind.  She was very excited, for this is the place she really wanted.  The two agents we had hoped to hear from today both said that they would not be back in touch until Monday.  Their offices were closed.

Peg and I enjoyed a celebratory dinner with a good bottle of wine.  Again, in a matter of days, we had managed to rent an apartment in a foreign land, for a reasonable price, in a good location.  I think we could have done it even if it had to be negotiated entirely in Italian.  The fact that Gabriella and most agents spoke English quite well certainly helped matters greatly.

3/27/99

We have a bus pass for a week which allows unlimited use of the metro and the buses for L24,000.  A monthly costs L50000, about $30.  We bought these the first day here.

We spent the morning touring parts of Rome on a local bus, our first look at the local sights other than what we have seen in passing.  We have chosen the area near the Fiume Tevere (Tiber River).  A hospital sits on the Isola Tiberina.  Crossing the river by foot, we enter a neighborhood bordering the Trastevere (which means 'across the Tevere'), an area filled with large, majestic Renaissance palaces.

We met Gabriella and Peter at 3:00 p.m.  The rent is not L1.3 but L1.1 million instead.  Peg must have written it down incorrectly.  There is no written lease.  The apartment heat is provided by the condominium association, so the landlord pays that bill.  You can turn the hot water heat on at the radiator, but if they are not running the furnace, you get no heat.  The gas for cooking is metered in the basement, but the electrical meter is in the apartment.  We pay for both.  You have to call the electric company once each month with a meter reading.  To find out how many units you have used in telephone time, you dial 1717.  The rate per unit is published so when we leave at the end of our lease, all we have to do is dial the number and do the math.  We have to pay two months deposit, even for a six month lease, but she says that on the day we leave, we meet and deduct any bills and damage, and they return the money right then.  She looks at each L100,000 note we give her.  She finds one she says is counterfeit.   She says that this is common and they are often easy to spot and shows us how.

In less than an hour, Peg and I are out the door.  Emilia and Ana are waiting for us near the Vatican.

3/28/99

 "No other city [Rome] in the Western world can lay claim to so many masterworks of architecture from so many different epochs, not to mention the countless paintings and sculptures found inside each of them.  Nor can any other city claim enough nooks and crannies to cram in the 981 churches and 28 fountains that Rome possesses."   ---  Let's Go Europe

Well, when you read something like this, you certainly should feel fortunate to be here.  We do and still are shaking our heads and saying to one another, "I still can believe it..."  This sentiment not only comes from the opportunity to live in one of the great seats of civilization but also because we have found excellent lodging.  Our apartment has two large rooms on the 7th floor of a modest nine story building.  The kitchen is well-equipped with plenty of room to work.  The appliances and fixtures are not new, but they are more than adequate.  Our stove is gas, a plus.  There's a washing machine. We also have extra beds for Emilia and Ana.

We're a couple of miles, at most, southeast of the city center and only a few metro stops.  From our balcony we have a 180-degree of Rome, including hills on the horizon.  Although a couple of buildings are as tall as ours, most are not.  We can see the dome of St. Peter's quite well.  At about a kilometer lies San Giovanni in Laterano, one of Rome's most ornate churches.  Our building is three blocks from the Metro station, one half a block from a good bus route, four blocks from a train station (although not the main train station) and two blocks from an open-air market.  Next door is a discount supermarket, and three doors away there is a great cup of cappuccino and an excellent plate of pasta.
 

We found them easily yesterday.  The plan was to meet at an internet cafe.  Instead, Emilia met us on the street near where the internet cafe was; it had closed shop.  Anna was nearby having a coffee.  After updating them on our situation, we carried their luggage back to our apartment, and everyone spent a while organizing.  We had ourselves not even unpacked our bags.

Now the first difficulty one faces with Spaniards is when to have lunch and dinner.  The Spanish eat much later than most everyone else in the world.  The ladies said that they would eat whenever we wanted.  For dinner, that turns out to be around 7:30 p.m.  That's still several hours before Spaniards would have a formal dinner.

We went to a nearby restaurant.  It was already busy.  The waiter looked and acted like Manuel, the character in Faulty Towers.  His bushy moustache his inability to take orders except in one way made the comparison work.  He required that each give their antipasto orders first, then their first plate, and so on.  Every other waiter we have encountered took the orders per person, or didn't care how we gave the order.  Since we did not understand his system at first, he explained it and went to serve another table. He came back and we still did not do it right so he left again.  He finally took our orders.  When at last he brought them out, he had the orders right, and got them to right person.   However, after all his fuss about the proper order to give the orders, he brought everything out at once!  Manual was never unpleasant, and kept us well supplied with bread and anything else we needed.  To top it off, everything was wonderful.

So far, we find that you cannot eat a meal here for less than about L20,000 ($11) except in the cafeterias or in places called "tavola calda" (hot table), where maybe you can eat for about L15,000.  Wine, however, is a bargain.  A liter of the house wine runs about L6,000 ($3.00) and has been very good everywhere.  In small bars in touristy, pricey neighborhoods, a small glass of wine, however, can cost about L5,000.

After breakfast, we just had to do some cleaning.  We could not stand another minute in our apartment without doing something.  Anna and Emilia insisted on helping.  We tried mightily to convince them that they did not come to Rome to clean apartments.  We finally threw in the towel. )

A few layers of black soot found the drain, Emilia had washed dishes alone for over an hour, Anna worked on a gigantic dress, I washed the floor and Peg, well, I forget.  Peg and I had not met Ana before, but we knew that Emilia did not care about housekeeping, and freely admitted it.  I will always remember this Sunday morning cleaning party, for our guests went above and beyond the call of duty.

"Emilia," I said, "when you go back to Spain, and people ask you what you did in Spain, you will tell them that you washed dishes.  They won't believe you."

"Well, when you go on vacation, you should always do something different," she said and we both laughed.

Ana works for a major manufacturer of telephones and other electronic devices.  Emilia was one of her professors.  In her job, she performs various technical tasks.  One of them measures mobile phone signal strength.  She has several siblings and like many Spanish people her age, she lives at home.  She thinks the day is coming when she will have to get her own place to live.  Ana does not seem in a rush to move out.

In future sections labeled as above, I shall record my observations.  I will not wait to do it all at once.  I will forget too much and besides, one's observations change over time.

Several years ago, Peg and I went to Sicily with David.  It was early in the season, perhaps sometime in May.  In the small towns some hotels were not open.  One evening we went looking for a place whose small road sign said it was right on the beach.  We found it after some tortuous driving through narrow roads and one way underpasses.  We were the only guests, and there was equipment lying around to show that renovations were just being completed for the season.  They made us dinner and put us up in newly whitewashed rooms.  In the middle of the night we heard shouting somewhere in the hotel and Peg went to get them to quiet down, as we could not sleep.  The whole building was dark and I never could figure out how she managed to find them without falling over something.   She did, and they said to her that they were just discussing something.  I remembered my own childhood.  Things were discussed with my Sicilian mother in the loudest of voices at very close range.  So I expected that the Romans would be loud.  They are not.

I have noticed only a few exceptions so far.  Two occurred in the Metro station and on the same day.  Two arguments erupted.  In one, an old man was yelling at a fair-haired young man, who was yelling back.  They parted, and then a blue-uniformed man whom I thought was an employee of the metro started yelling at the same young man, who yelled back.  A short while later, a young black woman began yelling at a 60-ish year old tall Italian man.   In another instance, a woman in her mid-50's was screaming at a young man collecting signatures for some cause on a street corner.  He just sort of stood there and took it.   I did not understand anything of these conversations.  I did not even hear any of the few swear words I learned as a youngster;  they were Sicilian and some or all of them are probably not used anymore.

In these instances, passers-by turned and watched the proceedings.  A hush followed as the normal dialogues ceased.

The loud scooters of Italy are disappearing, replaced by newer and larger ones with better mufflers.  They still swarm, but much less offensively not only in volume of sound but they also pollute much less.  Furthermore, the new generation of scooters is more attractive.  They are very practical, as you can get around quickly and get 25+ kilometers per liter, I estimate.  The smaller units start at around L4,000,000 ($2500).

3/30/99

Maria at Eurocar is waiting for us.  While she prepares the paperwork on the rental car, she helps me with pronunciations.  She speaks English but I am trying to do the transaction in Italian.  Shortly we are heading to the east, searching for the highway that takes us south past Naples and to Pompeii.  The journey takes about two hours.  A while later we are on the side of Mt. Vesuvius, sitting in a restaurant.  We are the only guests and this is the only place in the area we could find open for business.  Our one-handed waiter patiently explains that there are only a few things available.  There are so few that there are no menus.  He or his wife cook lunch as we listen to them rattle pots while we drink wine.

After lunch we drive down into Pompeii.  Since this is the off season, parking is not difficult.  We are soon at the entrance to the old Pompeii; there is a modern city as well.  The old city is on a hill on one side of the modern city, within easy walking distance.  You enter old Pompeii still climbing as the ancient gate and the tall brick walls lining the path pass by.  Shortly you see the first of the ancient town to greet the visitor.  To the right, the views of the sea are magnificent.

No less magnificent is this famous and well-preserved city, frozen in 79 when the volcano  Vesuvius erupted.  There are the remains of temples and a basilica (law court), forum, two theaters, one of which is from the first half of the 2nd century BCE, a bordello with visual representations of the proprietress' specialty worthy of special study, baths, statues, villas of the well off, mosaics, some quite well preserved, such as the one advertising the dangerous dog guarding a residence, tiled counters with large holes in them for cold and hot food from which vendors served customers.  The amphitheater is the oldest standing in the world, with a capacity of 12,000 spectators.  It is still used, I think.  The city housed some 20,000 inhabitants.  Even a superficial visit can easily take four or five hours.

Most famous and most touching are the frozen people.  Their bodies left detailed impressions in the volcanic ash that became their burial ground.  When archeologists filled the impressions with plaster, you could see expressions of pain and horror.  One woman is holding her dress over her mouth to protect against the falling ash.  On a man you could see his belt and sandals, his shirt.

Pompeii is worth a second visit, after I have studied more.

VIII Century BCE Ceramic pieces and stone arms indicate possible settlement
VII-VI BCE  first certain settlement; block wall and dwellings
VI-425  Greeks, Etruscans and Greeks again
V   Samnites
III BCE (end) Romans conquered, but locals retained institutions and language
89 BCE  Lucio Silla conquered the city
80 BCE  Became Roman colony, absorbed by Rome, so lost language, culture
62    Violent earthquakes seriously damage city
79   Destroyed by volcano. 6-7 meters of ash; most killed
1594   Rediscovered during canal construction
1748   First real excavations started
1806-1832  Most buildings discovered
1840   Giuseppe Fiorelli makes plaster casts of victims
1860   Fiorelli becomes director if excavations and begins a more orderly process
1924   Excavations directed by archeologist Amedeo Maiuri

Source: The Archeological Pompei, City of Pompei brochure. Also see www.uniplan.it/pompei/azienda.   Note that they are spelling it with only one 'i', not two as I have always seen.

3/31/99

The Amalfi Coast is a slow drive, even at this time of year, but the views are worth the effort.  There is no need to worry about being behind buses that must sometimes inch their way around corners because there is no need or desire to rush.  The houses that offer views of the steep mountain side and of the sea below make you want to make an offer and move in tomorrow.  Some are mansion and others little more than huts, but all are inviting.  There are many small towns crouched upon the cliffs.  We see ferries taking passengers to nearby islands, and fishing vessels returning safely from the deep.  The air is crisp with early spring time, the light is making sharp shadows, the sea is a smooth, deep blue extending to the distance horizon.  It is only fifty or so kilometers from one end to the other, but in the summer, the trip can take all day.  It takes us well into the afternoon, including lunch in a room with a view.

4/1/99 (Saturday)

The electricity was out for a few hours yesterday.  When it did not come back on after several hours, I knocked on the neighbor's door.  He said he had light.  I talked to Mr. Adamo, the building superintendent or some such.  He said maybe the electrical bill had not been paid.  I asked an elderly couple if they had electricity in their apartment.  She said she did not know.  They had just come out of their door, how could they not know?  Later I figured that the way I asked the question may have suggested that I was asking if they electrical service (i.e., wires in the wall).  So maybe it sounded insulting to them.  Before Gabriella called back, I learned that the problem was the main switch.  I did not know we had one.  It is deeper in the wall, besides there is a main switch on the breaker panel.  It reads "16 amps."  You can't run the hot water heater and the washer simultaneously; combined the two draw 16 amps or more.  This need not be a problem, as the washing machines heat the water themselves; in the U.S. they do not.   So in our situation we simply turn the hot water off when we run the washer.  Since in this apartment, as in most we have been in, the hot water heater is turned on and off frequently, the tank and the switch are conveniently located.

I also was confused by what happened when I called Gabriella.  A telephone company answered and spoke too rapidly for me to get the message. I hung up.  Peg called and listened, then remembered that Gabriella had voice mail.

Friday afternoon we visited San Paulo Fuori la Mura (St. Paul's Outside the Walls).  The name refers to the fact that the Basilica was once outside city walls.  It is one of five Basilica's that are Vatican property, so you cross the Vatican/Italy border when you enter.  Here St. Paul's body is said to be; his head, however, is in San Giovani.  After he died, near the EUR section of Rome, a small shrine was built at his grave site.   Emperor Constantine (4th Century, the first catholic emperor but not the one to make Christianity the official religion) built a basilica over the tomb, where the altar now stands.  The building was later enlarged (395).  There it remained for fourteen centuries.    It endured two sacks, one in the 8th century and another in the 9th.  In July 1823 a fire broke out in the roof and the building was almost destroyed.  It was completely rebuilt on the original plan.  A plaque from the 4th century marks Paul's grave; it has never been moved.
 

San Paolo is an enormous structure.  Eighty granite columns hold up the main roof.  The ceiling is coffered in gold.  The main hall looks like it could seat several thousand people.

An impressive mosaic is from the 13th century by Venetian artists is in the Byzantine style, common at the time. The picture gallery has some drawings of the church after it was burned.  Somehow we missed the St. Paul Bible, a 9th century illustrated manuscript.  A fifth century mosaic was renovated after the fire.  It shows Christ with two angels and the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse.

We came here looking for a flea market that is held in the church.   It was not to be found.  Our tour of the church was not on the itinerary but it lured us right in and around.  Seems a bit undignified to have a flea market in a place like this.

Emilia and Ana arose at 4:00 a.m. Saturday morning (April 1) to get to the train to the airport on time.  They had a 7:00 a.m. flight, arriving in Madrid around 9:30 a.m.  My short wave receiver had an alarm so I got them up, made some coffee and we were off by 5:00.  The walk takes about 20 minutes with all the baggage.  The sky is clear, stars and planets clearly visible despite the city lights.

On the way back home, as I walked the middle of the street, two cars came at me from opposite directions.  They slowed after I moved onto the sidewalk and I began to get a little nervous.  It was only me and them on the street at this early hour.  Looking for ways of escape produced no relief; just high walls and closed buildings.  Nothing to do but wait it out.  As the car in front approached, I saw three men with bulky black overcoats.  At once I thought they were Mafioso, probably from having seen too many Godfather movies and besides I just read The Last Don.  Or was it my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary?  My imagination was instructed not to run away with itself.

It did not have to.  Both cars stopped as they neared me and both on my side of the road.

"Someone wants to talk to you," one said in English.  He smiled and said, "Don't worry.  Just get in."

I did not have much choice but I said, "Would you like to have my phone number?"  After all, if someone wants to talk to me, this would be an acceptable method for so doing.

"Our employer he wants to see you personally.  Now please, get in."  I sensed his patience was limited, so I got in.

"Please excuse me, I do not wish to frighten you, but I must put a blindfold on you.  You cannot see where we are going."  I was sure I didn't have a choice.  And I sure was frightened.

It was hard to determine distance and direction, but from my watch I could tell that we drove about thirty minutes.  It was only 5:00 a.n. when I was seated in a plush room.  Soon I was brought to another room where I was placed behind a petition.  Someone sat on the other side but I could not see him at all.

"My employer's daughter says that you raped her."

I was stunned.

"Excuse me."

He repeated what he said.
 

I said I had only been in Rome a short while.  I knew no one other than my landlord.  I had not been out at night.  I had not been alone with anyone except my wife and friends.

"I am sorry that such a terrible thing happened, however, but the daughter in question has mistaken me for someone else."

He asked for my passport.  I usually carry just the copy but this time I had the original.  He left the room and returned about twenty minutes later.

"She says that she recognizes you.  You slipped something into her drink at a bar.  She woke up at your apartment the next day.  She remembers nothing.  She was tested afterwards and had been assaulted."

"Can she take us to that apartment?" I asked.  No one there would recognize me and I would be off the hook.

He left and returned in about 15 minutes.  A million thoughts entered my mind.  I knew I was dealing with dangerous people.  They could easily kill or maim me.  I came up with several more strategies in case the apartment ploy did not work.

I rejected the idea of telling them that I was a good guy, too old at this point to be raping women.  I could afford to buy sex if I wanted it.  I had a young daughter and would think of anyone her age as sacrosanct.  And so on.  But I decided that these sorts of arguments were too self-serving and rapists do as they because of the kind of people they are, not because rape is a more convenient option.  They had to decide what kind of person I was on their own and I could only persuade them of my good character by how I handled what was happening.   I decided to appeal to their sense of needing to find the right person, without over-emphasizing the need to avoid punishing an innocent one; these were probably people who did not worry too much about anything but power.  But I hoped that getting the right person would mean that they could then safely forget this matter.  I decided that I had to be very diplomatic and very honest with them.  Any lies would be disastrous if discovered.

The man returned and said they would go to this apartment.  I was sure that by the time they got back, it would be well after 9:00 a.m.  Peg would be worried.  I asked if I could call her and was told I would have to wait.

The smell of coffee reached me and I was getting hungry.  Before long, I felt dizzy and then began to sleep.  I found myself running through the catacombs.  Three thugs converged upon me from tombs.  They carried knives and said in Italian that they would remove my sexual organs for the rape of Donella.

Who's Donella?

I struggled to fly, felt that if I could just move my arms fast enough, I would escape.  Then I awoke.  Peg was in the kitchen.  Light filtered through the wooden shutters.  The Last Don was on the shelf.

In the afternoon I found a bakery near our house that sold bread sticks.  I had not had bread sticks like these since I was a child.  We went to Long Island to visit my aunt about every two weeks.  She or my uncle Matthew, not the only Sicilian with had blond hair and blue eyes, would bring bread sticks from somewhere in Brooklyn, I think.  We ate them with unsalted butter.  The bread sticks were about an inch in diameter and about six inches long, encrusted with sesame seeds.  The ones I bought today were just like those and so unlike, and so much better than anything else I could buy living in Colorado and Texas for over 25 years.  Also we tried some copolitanto, a dry, sweet cookie with an unsweetened chocolate-like filling.  Since these were new to me, I have no idea if they taste as they should.  I looked for canoli, a crisp pastry shell stuffed with sweetened ricotta, but there were none to be found.

In the street market two blocks from our house I bought some dandelions.  Italians love greens and dandelions, as called them in my family, are a special delight, at least for those who like bitter greens.  The woman told me to cook them peperoncini, which does not mean 'pepperoni,' the dry sausage, but 'peppers.' I asked her if she meant 'peperoncini picante' and she said yes.  I don't have any whole ones yet, just the powdered variety, but I'll be getting some soon!

As I was entering the apartment, a woman was vacuuming her rug.  Her door was open so I introduced myself.  My name is, we are from America, I don't speak much Italian, the usual.  She told me that the neighbors had been robbed. Someone broke into their apartment during the day.  I asked her if she were home during the day and I said, "D¡a" instead of "giorno."  This must not have been the first time I used Spanish, for she asked me if I spoke that language.  I affirmed, and she started speaking Spanish.  Speranza's real name Esperanza and she is from Colombia.  We promised to have coffee someday soon so we could get to know each other and so she could meet Peggy.  I could keep up with my Spanish.  She said her Italian is only so-so.  Learning from her would not be the best idea.  Esperanza speaks English.  I think Peg and I will both like her.

Later we took the bus just to look around.  I saw Castle St. Angelo for the first time.  It is a huge, round castle with rectangular buildings on the top; I read that one of the popes built them.  In Piazza Navonna crowds attended, and in many cases just barely noticed, political rallies.  An upcoming referendum is the cause, a referendum that is supposed to increase the stability of Italian governments.  Why don't they just elect one every four or five years and forget all these votes of confidence and whatever else brings these governments down?  Among the flags was the Italian Communist Party.  I had never seen a hammer and sickle flag in person.  I guess it was just a historical necessity that I did so today.

4/2/99

We went early this morning to St. Peter's, a quick ride on the metro when there are so few people about.  In the plaza, preparations were nearly complete for the Easter celebration.  Large traffic gates controlled pedestrian flow.  Soldiers and police were abundant.  Some held machine guns.  Nasty, short things.

Soon there were upwards of 100,000 people in the Plaza.  We did not want to be in the mess afterwards and made our escape.  We did not wait to see or hear the pope.  Guessing what he is likely to say is easy, and we don't care.  But the plaza is magnificent.

 Easter thoughts

Listening to the shortwave, I heard something rather like the following.

"So, let me get this straight.  God sends his only son so he can die so we can get into heaven.  Can someone explain how one leads to the other?  Ok, let's go on. Now, who is God sacrificing to?  He is sacrificing for man but not to any higher authority than himself, since there isn't such.  So God is sacrificing to God, no?  I'm confused."

About ten percent of the population attends church in Italy.

4/06/99

Am coming right along in Italian.  A little study and practice everyday.  Today I wrote a letter that I needed to send.  Our landlords corrected it for me.  They are both teachers of Italian, he of literature, she of grammar.  They came to see if any repairs were needed.  The landlords decided to wait on anything that did not need to be done right away and wasn't much of a problem.  Workers are prima donnas and expensive, she said.

It was well after we went to bed that the door bell rang.  We have a peep hole so I was going to check to see who it was.  To my surprise the door was open when I got there.  A policeman was standing there.

Another dream?

He wanted to know if everything was ok.  I said yet it was.  I was trying to figure out why the door was open when I remembered that I had no clothes on. I looked down when he did.  It was a most confusing moment.  He spoke to someone to his left and asked again if all was well.  I said yes and closed the door.

The bell rang again just after I got back into bed.  It was the policeman again.  This time I had pants on and went into the hallway.  He had been talking to the neighbors, the ones whose house had been robbed.  I asked if the door was wide open, they said yes.   Worrying that our house had been broken into, they had called the police.   That our door was open I attributed to a gust of wind that I had heard sometime earlier.  The door must be carefully closed, apparently.  Once before we thought it was closed and it was not and it opened without the key.

4/7/99

Today's field trip is to the Museo della Civit… Romano, a state-run museum.  It has two large models of Rome, both recently completed.  One shows the city in the late part of the domination of the Tarquin kings and the first decades of the Republic.  They write that both models are the result of a comparative analysis between historical sources and archeological findings of recent decades.  The other model is of the time of Constantine.  When I compared the two, which unfortunately are on opposite ends of the museum, the most striking thing is the change in the topography.  The earlier model shows a much more rugged landscape, with sharp cliffs and steep hills.  By the time of Constantine (4th century of the Common Era), the sharp ridges had been smoothed out, in some cases perhaps even eliminated, by natural and human forces.  Luxuriant forests are gone.  Of course, by then the city was filled with structures, some still with us, and is much larger.

The models show that Rome lies in the valley of the Tevere.  To north and south there are mountains.  The river continues to the southwest, past the port, and on until it reaches the sea.

The museum claims to have the oldest Madonna in the world, from the fifth century.  It has a large collection of ancient art, mostly sculptures, some of the finest examples, even when copies, that you can find most anywhere. The museum is well organized.  Each room starts with a lengthy description of the contents and the historical context in which the objects should be placed.  These descriptions would have been useful to take home but the guide book they have is too skimpy to be of much service.

The museum is famous for its replica of Trajan's column, the original of which is near the Colosseum.  Given the height of the column, it's difficult to see the top.   Here you can see it close up.  The column is the story of the conquest of the Daccia, the area we now call Romania, the same one whose ubiquitous Daccia branded cars still roam after over twenty years of service, sometimes going blocks at a time without breaking down.  How they managed to make this cast is a wonder.  So is the fine workmanship of the original carving.

4/8/99 (Saturday)

Since our internet service provider charges a whopping $12 per hour when roaming, we decided to sign up for a European account with the same company.  No one provides unlimited access in Europe, but at least we will get five hours for about $15.  That's more than enough.

It turns out, however, that if you try to sign up using an Italian access number, our provider (and probably others) only allows you to sign up for an Italian account.  Since I could not get access even after I signed up, I called customer support.  They have to send you a contract obliging you in some way to some Italian company so that you can get internet access.  The process would take at least two weeks.  The agent said that Italy was the only country in Europe with these requirements.  I could sign up for an account from any other country and not have this problem.  I decided on the UK, but I had to sign up on the net using a UK number, a long distance and not cheap call from Italy.  After a number of gyrations, we are signed up.

While on the topic of communications, I figured out how much it cost to use the telephone here.  The basic monthly charge is about L26,000.  That's about $15.  Not bad at all.  But then you have to pay more if you actually use the thing.  You are charged in units.  Each unit cost L127, about $.07, plus 20% tax or about $.09.  A unit gives you about three and a half minutes of usage (local calls) during the peak hours and about six and a half during non-peak hours.  Peak hours are 8:00 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. (1830) daily and Saturday morning from 8:00-1:30 p.m. (1330).  Calls for long distance are charged at shorter, sometimes very far shorter time periods per unit.  Calls to mobile phones are also charged at higher rates.  The caller pays, unlike in the U.S., unless you are roaming.  This is a typical arrangement in Europe and can with amazing speed lead to a $40 or $50 phone bill even without long distance charges.

Anytime you want to know your usage, your dial 1717.  For one unit they will give you a reading, which you compare with a previous reading.

Near Termini bus station a woman was sitting on a bicycle.  From across the street she looked normal and I paid little attention.  As I got close, she took a large gulp from a one liter beer bottle and hurled it onto the pavement.  It shattered noisily.  Her face was a massive grimace, her hair thick and matted, unwashed for weeks or longer.  Her exercise clothing was disheveled, torn and dirty.  The bicycle wheels were flat.  The poor creature looked quite miserable and as hostile-looking as Medussa on her throne.

Near our street market there is a small liquor store.  We had been there once or twice before we noticed that the friendly shopkeeper had large taps on a refrigerated compartment.  He told us that he dispensed red and white wine into his or your own containers.  Did we want to try some?  Sure.  It's after breakfast.  He poured us each a little of red and white.  Seemed drinkable so we bought a bottle of red, at L4500 ($2.50) per liter.  That's about $2 a bottle.   Surely this is the kind of wine you get in the restaurants when you order the house wine for about L6000 per liter.

The discount food store (alimentari) next door to our flat is playing opera for the shoppers.  The Italians revere the voice.  If listening to the three tenors while buying your fennel doesn't prove this assertion, I don't know what it will take.

Italy has some of the finest fruits and vegetables in the world.  I have read that the volcanic soil is responsible for their quality and abundance.  They certainly love their veggies here.  Antipasto offerings are filled with various vegetable delights, and vegetables are placed on the menu under "contorni" as well.  Some restaurants list salads separately, meaning that the amount of attention given to greens is far greater than found in most countries.

The markets offer an extremely wide variety, so wide, I have yet to catalogue it.  Maybe I'll find a cookbook or an article that will have done it for me.  I will have something later in the journal, for truly the selection is enormous.

Cooking methodologies are also quite diverse, but this topic will have to wait.  Suffice to say, particularly in Sicily, I doubt that there is a better vegetable cuisine in the world.

We have started trying different items.  Today we had fennel.  This is the first time I have had finocchio (fennel) since the last time I had bread sticks.  In my family we ate the stalks, like celery, but here I have only seen the base.  It is about an inch thick and two inches wide.  Peg tried baking it but that didn't work.  We had it baked in a restaurant and they must have done something different.  Recently we tried chicory (cicoria);  some greens with tough stalks that I have never seen; and dandelions, which we also had in our family.   They are strong, rather bitter, except when you have them properly prepared as we did one day.

The olive selections are enormous, many more varieties of preparation than one finds in Spain but no more than one would find in France.  Greek olives here are called 'dry olives.'

4/9/99

We have encountered the following disruptions:

         Metro on strike for one day (unannounced, we were told)
         Elevator in our building did not work (once)
         Front door lock broke, no one could get in or out until a resident forced
            the lock with a screw  driver.

Traffic delays and construction obstacles are every day problems for people here.  Street traffic in and leading to Rome is far beyond road capacity.  City dwellers who can take the metro are usually better off, unless you face problems due to the renovations that are in progress and the odd strike.  Bus riders must deal with slow-downs due to congestion.  Having a car means having to find a place to park.  Often it means honking your horn loudly for five or ten minutes since someone has double-parked behind you and is in some building, you know not which.  Soon many downtown gas stations will be closed, for good.  Only stations on the outskirts will be open.

In the evening Peg went to an Easter concert in a basilica redesigned by Michelangelo from the Baths of Diocletian.  She found a list of similar concerts, many of them free, and there is quite a large number of them in the works.  There's an organization called "Friends of Sacred Music" that brings in college and church choirs from the US.

There is so much to do here that I am beginning to think that six months won't be long enough.  So much to do that we had to buy a second guidebook, this one a Michelin, which lists about 31 different walks you
can follow in Rome alone.

My eyes glaze over.

4/13/99

Today's art and architecture delights were numerous. First came the  The Piazza del Popolo (Plaza of the People).  This piazza, once used by popes for public executions, is no minor thing.  In the middle stands the Obelisk of Pharaoh Ramses.  It is about 3200 years old.  Augustus brought it back from Egypt in the first century BCE.  It was restored in 1984.  From its base you can see:

 a) the Porta del Popolo.  This entrance runs through the third century Aurelian wall.  'Aurelian' refers to the Emperor Marcus Aurelia.  The facade (1562-65) was built by Pope Pius IV to impress visitors entering the city from the north.  The Medici coat of arms is predominantly displayed.  Bernini did the internal facade.

 b) down Via del Corso to the bright white monument to King Vittorio Emanuele II about a mile away.  He is credited with being the founder of modern Italy.  He was still in power when Mussolini took control.

 c) down Via di Ripetta, with St. Peter's dome at the end of the line of vision.

 d)down via Babuino, which leads past the Spanish steps.

Santa Maria del Popolo is on the Piazza del Popolo.  It has several masterpieces from the Renaissance and Baroque periods.  Pinturicchio's (1454-1513) Adoration arises from the shadows when you turn on the light.

Above the main altar is a gilded relief that depicts the exorcism that led to the church's foundation.  I saw the tree I read about but the rest entirely escaped me under the poor lighting conditions.  The exorcism was of Nero's ghost, who was annoying the neighbors.  Pope Paschal II chopped down a walnut tree that marked Nero's grave.  This somehow was supposed to stop Nero's ghost from fiddling around.  Then they built the church.  I guess just any old excuse won't do.

To the left of the main altar are some superb yet strange paintings by Caravaggio.  In one, the Crucifixion of St. Peter, shows Peter nailed to the cross.  Two things make the painting strange.  Your point of view is such that you are looking down the cross at St. Peter, and the cross is on the ground. He was crucified head down, but you can't tell that from the picture.  Secondly, the posteriors of the figures are in the foreground.  In the other painting in this chapel depicts St. Paul when he is just about to convert, having been thrown from his horse.  The horse's posterior takes up a large part of the painting, while Paul is flat on his back.

How they found this much marble to stuff this church with I will never know.  Walls, floor, ceiling.  Nothing fake, exquisite joiner work, fine sculptures.

There is a chapel designed by Raphael.  I was too stunned by what I had already seen to look at it. I'll have to go back.

Our next stop took us down Via di Ripetta to Augustus' mausoleum.   His remains are no longer there.  What we have is a mostly complete brick structure on a mound of dirt.  The mausoleum was probably crowned by a hill, making it an imitation of Etruscan mound-tombs, like Castel San Angelo near the Vatican.  It was converted to a fortress, a theater and then a concert hall, but it is now unused.

Across the street is the Ara Pacis, completed in 9 BCE.  It is a monument to the peace that Augustus brought to the Empire.  The art is said to be some of the finest examples of what ancient Rome has to offer.  The archeologists did a fine looking job of putting it all back together.  According to Let's Go it was found under water, supporting a corner of a large palace.  Michelin says it was assembled but pieces came from museums, and parts are modern reproductions of missing pieces.

4/14/99

We started the day with visits to three small churches.

Santa Pudenziana, now 15 feet below street level, houses mosaics created in 390 AD - the oldest Christian mosaics in Rome.  The other small church was built in 822.  It contains what is supposed to be the column to which Christ was tied for flogging.  Pudenziana and Prassede were believed to be sisters, but in 1969 the Church decided they had never existed and removed them from the list of saints.

We also went to the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Jerusalem), probably from 326, with changes in 1144 and 1744.  Peg says it is now a rococo building but it began life as the hall of Constantine's mother's residence.  It houses, among other items: three pieces of the True Cross and a five-foot section of the cross of the Good Thief, and the dismembered finger that doubting Thomas poked into the wound in Jesus' side.  Thank goodness those people saved these things.  Where would we be without them?

As if this weren't enough for one day, we then went to Santa Maria Maggiore, four blocks from Termini, and one of the five major basilicas.  Santa Maria Maggiore is on the Esquiline, one of the famous seven hills of Rome.  In the Piazza is a column which was placed here in 1614.  It came from the Basilica of Mexentius.  The basilica was built in 352 in honor of Mary.  The honor was a reaction to the declaration that Mary was not the Mother of God by Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople.  I also read another, more mythical version of the origin.  Mary appeared in a dream to two men, one of them Pope Liberius, inviting them to build a basilica in her honor.  She told them that the next morning snow on the ground would mark the site.  Sure enough, Mary come through with the precipitation and on August 5, 356 the site was selected.  The church was originally called "St. Mary of the Snow."

There have been significant maintenance and remodeling efforts over the centuries but the building was never sacked, burned or otherwise destroyed.  It is now surrounded by two wings built in the 1600 and 1700's.   The original front facade is a large and beautiful mosaic from the fourteenth century.  Il Papa used to give his blessing standing in front of this treasure.  Nowadays the mosaic is now partially obscured by large columns holding up a new facade that protects the mosaics from the elements.   You climb a Bernini staircase to get there, if you pay the requisite L5000.

We were hoping to see the apartments that are on the same level, but they are closed to the public.  We asked to see them and the guard gave us a little peek at a small but magnificently decorated meeting room.  She said the rest of the apartments are in use, some private residences for church employees.

The interior is the least effected by later changes.  The mosaics are marvels of craftsmanship.  Those in the nave date from the fifth century.  The scenes are from the Old Testament.  The mosaics on the chancel arch (the arch above the main altar) also date from the same time.  The baldaquin (the canopy over the main altar) is marble and gold, as I recall.  It comes from the middle ages, I am not sure when exactly.

Underneath the alter is a relic of the crib of Jesus.  How it lasted this long can only be a miracle, or should I just say that they don't make cribs like they used to?  My mom had a pair of shoes bronzed, mine or perhaps my brother's, but this relic is thick with silver.  The crib is revealed each Christmas.  Simultaneously old Luther rolls over in his grave, joined by the likes of other Protestant greats.  Lorenzo Bernini is buried nearby.

The ceiling is covered with gold, supposedly the first gold to come from Peru. a gift of Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain.  You can see the coat of arms of the Borgia family, which had two popes.  There are many chapels too numerous and studded with magnificent art for words.

After so many churches, I still do not know what religious art is, but I know when I have had enough.

Afterwards we checked out the open market at the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. Dry spices, fruits, nuts, in bulk, along with more exotic fruits such as plantain that local markets don't normally have.

4/15-19/99

Galleria Spada, Palazzo Barberini, Galleria Corsini, Museo Nazionale de Palazzo Venezzia.

All of these palaces saw our little faces these four days because admission is free this week, being The Week of Culture.  At L10-12,000 ($5-6) per person per gallery, this amounts to a substantial savings and we can go back for more if we want to later.  Or have a fancy dinner with the savings.

In the later 1600's the very wealthy Cardinal Spada bought excellent art and built this palace to hold the art and his family.   You see the palatial apartments, in excellent condition.  Furniture.  Titan.  Baccia.  Guercino.  All fine and much of the art not religious, if I recall correctly.

Palazzo Barberini was built by Pope Urban VIII, aka Maffeo Barberini, construction starting in 1627.  The main facade is styled like a Roman country villa (Bernini).  Inside there is lots of religious art.  Also there is La Firnarina, perhaps by Raphael, which Michelin gives three stars, and a couple of lousy El Grecos.  I like his stuff but these just didn't work for me.

I really loved the finely crafted portrait of Henry VIII.  I took an instant dislike of the man the moment I saw this picture in the (copious) flesh.  I found this odd.   Henry and I are not strangers.  He is not altogether villainous. I have probably even seen photos of this very painting, but I never had any particular feelings before.  The portrait is by Hans Hoblein the Younger, the official painter at the English court.  Later I read in the Michelin that he produced paintings with psychological insight.  Perhaps he revealed something ugly about Henry's character.  Something I had not seen before.  But I remain puzzled.

Galleria Corsini was built in the 15th century by nephews of Sixtus IV, and came to Cardinal Corsini, nephew of Pope Clement XII.  It now holds the National Art Gallery.  You get to see Fra Angelico's Last Judgement.  Titan.  Reubens. Van Dyck.  Caravaggio.  To mention a few.

4/22/99

To Granai, an upscale Commercio Centrale in the far southwest quadrant of Rome.  It takes about an hour, using the metro and two buses to get there.  The attraction is the large department store.  Often small shops have what you need, but things are crammed in and it's harder to make selections.  Here, everything is laid out and the prices are better.  However, not only is getting there a challenge, getting back with any measurable quantity of items is also a challenge.

Part of the transportation difficulty arises from the fact that between us and this section lies the Appia Antica, a road dating from the time of the Republic (2nd century BCE), and the catacombs.  Christian graves line Appia Antica, since it was not legal to bury the dead inside the city of Rome; the Romans favored cremations.    Thus there has been little development and there are few roads cutting across, so you have to make large loops.

4/23/99

Several days ago we met Lucia.  Lucia is Irish-Italian, born in Ireland to an Italian family.  She works in Rome.  She was in one of the English language bookstores, as we were, looking for Italians to interchange conversation.  She gave me her phone number, after Peg joined the conversation, and said she had a friend interested in practicing her English.  It took me several days to reach Lucia by phone.  She works until 9:00.  Her landlady won't allow phone calls after 9:30.

Her friend's name is Simone, Lucia told me today after I reached her at last.  Lucia gave me Simone's phone number.  I called her and had long conversation entirely in Italian, which resulted in a date on Sunday, May 2, 4:30 p.m. at their house.  On Saturday we will get together with Lucia.

4/25/99

On the way to meet yet another set of new friends we went into the Vatican.  Peg particularly loves one of the marvelous marble drape and I am in awe of the whole place.  We have visited on previous trips and you could visit hundreds of times and still see something new.  Here they use the finest materials and enjoyed the best craftsmanship imaginable.  We just walked around the main area of the cathedral.

Nearby is the apartment of Gloria and Gaston.  Gaston was not there, having  flown to Berlin to retrieve his lost wallet from the city's lost and found department.  Gloria told us the intricate story that led to their retrieving $2400 in cash that was in the wallet.

It turns out that she and Gaston stayed at an albergo one floor below ours and at the same time as we did when we arrived!  They live a life style very similar to our own.  They are doing a grand tour of Europe, staying generally shorter terms than Peg and I.   Most recently they were in Paris, I think.  They owned a boat, cruised the Bahamas, and plan to buy another one.

Gloria told us that the direct trains in Italy are far less expensive than the Eurostar.  For our trip to Venice, this could prove to be a valuable piece of information.  These fares are harder to find from abroad.  The trains are slow, which is not what most tourists want, so they are not advertised.

4/26/99

Went to see a movie at a theater that shows films in their original version every day.  When we arrived we had a hard time finding the entrance.  The door was pulled down and there was not an ounce of information on the outside advising the seeker that he had reached his destination here in the Trastevere neighborhood.  We went to the bar next door and asked and he pointed to the people sitting nearby, saying they were the employees.  The theater was next door.

We finally got in and sat down, after having to use the rest room in the dark. Then the projector stopped five times in the first hour.  It got so ridiculous that we decided to leave.  They gave us our money back without asking and apologized.  They had been remodeling and were having trouble with the electricity.

On the way back home a group of kids were on the metro with us.  They ranged in age from 8 to about 15.  They appeared to be in the same family.  The boy of about ten years was hanging from the overhead bars you hold on to.  There weren't too many people on board so I did not think it was too dangerous, though he could fall.  However, a young man started yelling at him and pushing him into a corner.  All the other kids, especially the mid-teens girls, gathered around to defend him.  Lots of yelling.  By contrast, a little earlier on the tram, it was crammed with people but nonetheless quiet, like Glasgow was even in crowded parks.

 La non-dolce vita

Traffic at our corner is usually snarled early in the morning.  People turning right are delayed due to traffic back-up to the same direction.  They go around the cars in line turning right to start a second line going to the right.  Thus they crowd the intersection.  Then people going straight cannot move without going into left lane;  they encounter people coming straight from the opposite direction trying to wiggle past as well.  There is a real mess and it occurs almost every day in hundreds of intersections in Rome.

4/29/99

The Alban Hills are on the southeast side of Rome, not more than 30 minutes from the bus station at Anagnina metro stop.  They overlook the coast and the plain through which the Tevere (Tiber) runs.  Below are Roman suburbs, the coastal towns and the ruins of Ostia.  The Hills are famous for their thirteen Roman castles, including the Pope's summer home, and the white wine of Frascati that is so popular in Rome.  The castles were built by wealthy Roman families in medieval times.   Most are perched around the rim of an ancient crater that is now a lake.  Many of the towns still have the castle around which they grew.  The landscape is most everywhere beautiful.  From various locations you can see Rome and from others, the sea. (I took part of this paragraph from one of Peg's letters)

We visited Frascati and Albano.  Frascati was born following the destruction of nearby Tuscolo in 1191; the latter dated to about 380 BCE.  The name refers to firewood; Frascati was once the government owned territory from which firewood was gathered.  Its appearance now comes from 1538, when it was built by Pope Pail III.  The town was walled and called Nuvum Tusculum.  The wine harvest is accompanied by autumn celebrations.

The cathedral (1610) is dedicated to St. Peter.  It was severely damaged by Allied bombardment during WWII.  A short distance away is a Jesuit church. Both are ordinary compared to what we have seen but worth a look.  We skipped The Church of the Capuchins.  The only thing I have heard about the Capuchins is that they invented cappuccino.  If so, they can not be all bad.  Villa Belvedere is up the hill behind the main plaza but today it is closed until late in the afternoon.  Pope Clement VII built it for his nephew.

We took a bus to Albano.  Albano, says the area's tourist board colorful, sometimes well-translated brochure, is in the area of 'Albalonga.'  This, it says, is considered to be the center of the Latin tribe.  Albano was definitely a Roman town, founded in the fourth century.  The town center sits where part of Emperor Domiziano's villa was located.  Between the volcanic lake and the Appian Way Septimus Severus had his great camp of legionaries.   A large portal was uncovered recently, I think during a WWII bombing.  I may have read this off a plaque on the site.

Emperor Constantine built the first church.  Today it is the cathedral. If my memory serves well, it is a crude structure and unadorned.  The Church of St. Mary is a rotunda.  It is undergoing repairs and we could not get in.  The town's water comes from the Roman cisterns, the only such in the world still working.

Albano and Frascati, and the others we drove through today remind me of so many of the other beautiful Italian mountain villages.  I understand why so many Italians still come here in the summer.

4/30/99

Peg's inner ear is infected so we need a doctor to check it out.  We knocked on a neighbor's door, the ones who were robbed and whom we've had to ask to turn down the stereo from time to time.  She suggested a hospital rather than a doctor since with a doctor you need an appointment.  We did most of our communicating in Italian, until her cousin came to the door.  She speaks a little English.  They then recommended a nearby clinic.

Before we left, I knocked on Esperanza's door.  She did get the note we left the other day.  She has been busy with her best friend from Colombia here for a visit.  She effusively says we will get together next week.

Then I took Peg to the doctor.  We went in one door and were told to go to another location in the building and we got very lost.  We finally found the office we were seeking and in Italian we told the appointment clerk what the problem was.  She said something and it included the word 'ottorino.'  She spoke no English and the word was not in our dictionary.  She flagged down a doctor who spoke some English and he did not know the word for ottorino ar first but then he explained it was a doctor for the (pointing to the throat) and ears.  The clerk could have done this but I think she had an attitude.  An ear and nose man was just what we wanted.  The secretary told us we would be seen as soon as possible.  Ten minutes later the ottorino comes to talk to us.  We started in Italian and he asked where we were from.  When we told him, he said that we should talk in English.  Darn.  It was going to be easy.   We left a while later L120,000, about $70, lighter than we were when we came in.  The friendly doctor explained that this is a private, church affiliated clinic.  Certain things were paid by the state, such as x-rays and others were paid by the patient.  The penicillin and the nose spray ran about L40,000 ($24).  This patient paid.

We bought two Italian cookbooks (in Italian) last week and have been studying the vocabulary ever since.  I made a tomato sauce from one of the recipes last night.  Take tomatoes (canned ok), cut em up.  Add ricotta and strong black or green olives, salt. Capers if you want.  Mix it well - use blender- but we don't have a blender so I sort of mixed the ricotta with the tomato juice.  I did add onion and garlic, which I sauteed.  Recipe says that you don't cook the sauce at all, but I did.  Yummy.

Bought a bottle of  Frascetti for L2000 and it is wonderful.  Hard to believe at this price.

Tomorrow is May 1, a holiday.  Our street market is crammed with shoppers getting ready for the weekend.  Our little man, friendly as usual, always throws in some parsley and a few carrots.  He charges a little more but we avoid having to stand in a dozen lines to save a few lire.  We bought some bread and bread sticks and when we got outside, Peg thought we were over charged.  I went back in and the cashier explained it all to me in a very friendly way.  I think they were right.  The scales don't always display the weight to the customer.  Since bread is sold by weight, you don't always know how much you are getting, especially since some types of bread are more dense than others.  Also, if you want half a loaf of bread, they sell it to you.  You don't have to buy the whole thing.

Sitting on our balcony, sipping Frascati, swifts fly below me.  The evening is cool but lazy with haze over the mountains.  Young Italians prepare to step out in their flashiest for the evening's splash.  Others climb aboard agile scooters for the drive to their favorite restaurant or hangout.  Both pass on our street below.  Mothers and fathers roast the meat and cook the pasta.  And the little lady with the nursing baby who sits by our corner goes where the poorest of the poor sleep, cradling her cardboard mattress upon which she and infant shall try to rest, once more.
 
 
 

5/1/99

At a restaurant, order  'verdura cotta' and you will probably get some delicious greens.  Greens (the edible leaves) here include cicoria (chicory), spinanca (spinach), brocoleta (the green from the broccoli plant), endive, escarole (seen once and it did not look too fresh) and many others I have not yet catalogued.

Finding myself increasingly enamored with the vegetables, especially the greens, I have been trying them everywhere.  Besides ordering the 'verdura cotta' (sometimes called 'contorni' on the menus), you can often get a plate of mixed vegetables as an antipasto.  These include artichokes, whole onions, eggplant (aubergine if you learned English from the British, melanzane in Italian), zucchini, mushrooms and a variety of other items.  They are almost always good and often some items are exotic, such as forest mushrooms.  Some items are prepared several ways.  With bread, cheese and a glass of wine, you could easily make this a whole meal.  There's a fair amount of olive oil in these delights, so you won't get hungry or skinny soon.

We have been preparing various greens and other 'contorni' at home, using the two little cookbooks we bought locally.  One method is to brown garlic in olive oil, as much garlic as you want.  I use 3 about cloves for two persons.  Remove and then add the greens to the pan and cook down.  Add salt.  A variation is to first saute onions, add oregano, basil, parsley, salt, garbanzo's, and most important, the peperoncino (I think they are cayenne peppers), then add the garlic.  Stir into the greens after the greens are cooked.  You could make a paste out of this mixture to use for other things.

In Italy they ordinarily steam the vegetables first.  That way the vegetable is not dried out (sauteing really steams the plant so it should not be dried out either) and it cooks a lot faster.  I find that I like this way better.  This is an excellent way to do onions, with some seasoning or even stuffed with bread crumbs.  You can put it in the oven after it is almost done to bake in the flavors.  Remove after the onions start to brown.

As I write and edit this on May 15, we just came back from Venice and Ravenna.  Along the way, we passed through many fields full of greens and other vegetables.  Just having seen the mosaics in Ravenna, I thought that my day had peaked.  But the sight of fields full of greens threw me into a state.  I nearly jumped out of the train for the nearly uncontrollable urge to roll around in those fields.  Thus I became inspired to write a song:

          (To the tune of Dream Dream Dream, Everly Brothers)

When I see you
On my plate
And I eat you,
I don't gain weight.
Whenever I want to,
All I have to do is
Cook greens.
Greens! Greens! Green!

Chorus (1):

 I can make 'em fine,
 Cook 'em in red wine,
 Anytime night or day
 Only trouble is, gee whiz,
 I'm eating my life away.

When I'm not well,
I take a bite,
As sure as hell,
I'll be all right,
Whenever I want to,
All I have to do
Is eat greens
Eat eat greens

(Chorus - version 2)

 With some garlic fine,
 Peperoncino and wine
 Anytime, night or day
 Only trouble is,
 Gee whiz,
 I'm keeping my friends away.
 
 

This is May 1, May Day, a national holiday.  The metro is closed.  The buses do not start running until 4 p.m.  They stop at 9:00 p.m.  I figured this out by asking the locals I met on the street after I found the gate to the metro closed.  Most people didn't know, others said the metro is closed today and tomorrow.  One guy said it was running today.

This is an excellent weekend to close the metro and delay the start of bus service.  About a half million people are expected to come to the beautification of Padre Pio in St. Peter's and in San Giovanni tomorrow.  Today there is a huge rock concert at San Giovanni.  Perhaps we should stay home.

After the buses started running, we met Lucia near her apartment in the Trastevere, an old neighborhood in Rome.   Together we went to Santa Maria in Trastevere.  The first church on this site was built in the third century, by  Pope Calixtus or, more likely, Pope Julius.  It was altered in the ninth century to hold the remains of Calixtus and Pope Cornelius.  The current structure dates from the 12th century.  The door frame's friezes are from the Empire.  The interior columns were taken from ancient monuments.

Santa Maria is the first of Rome's churches dedicated to Mary.  Mosaics of Mary and ten women grace the exterior.  The 12th century mosaic inside is a delight.  The ceiling is thick with gold.  This is a beautiful building.

Lucia teaches English at a school near our apartment.  She has moved around in Europe, which is what she wanted to be able to do.  This desire led to her interest in teaching English.  There is plenty of work most everywhere.  Her Italian is passable, although she says she needs to practice more.  The friends she has are more likely to be English speaking.  This means that she does not speak Italian very much.  She met Simone when she first came to Rome.  Then offering private lessons, Simone was one of her students.  She cannot decide whether to stay in Italy for another year.

We walked around the Trastevere's old narrow streets and drank coffee in a small bar.  After we said goodbye until next time,  Peg and I tried to catch a train (not a metro) but we missed it and there was not another one for about an hour.  While waiting, we ate dinner at a restaurant near Trastevere station.  Peg had zucchini with the flowers still on, which is very popular here.  They were breaded, stuff with ricotta and deep fried.

5/2/99

This afternoon we met Semone and Guitinario (I think that's how he spells his name).  They live in an apartment southwest of ours.  With the metro closed and the buses asleep until after 4:00, we had to improvise using the train, as we did last night.  This resulted in about a two-mile hike through winding streets through upscale sections of Rome.  After figuring out which of the unmarked buildings was their's, we were at last sitting with them in their living room.

They are in their mid-thirties and have no children.  She works at her family's clothing shop near San Giovanni in Laterano.  He runs the desk at a luxury hotel in downtown Rome, working from 11:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m.  They are both tired of their jobs, he especially, and they want to live and work in London awhile.  Thus they need to practice English.  He gets regular practice at work, but she does not.

He says finding a job is difficult in Italy.  People seldom quit or are terminated, and hiring people is expensive.  The result is the lack of employment mobility, of which many Europeans complain.

After about an hour, he left to attend Mass and she drove us to the train station.  We made plans to meet again.

 5/4/99

A knock on the door.  A priest is standing outside so I open the door.  He speaks no English.  He tells me that he is a priest and that he is going around the neighborhood offering to bless the houses.  He wanted to know where we were from.  I told him that we were Americans from Texas.  Is that near Florida, he asked?  No, it's about 1500 kilometers from Florida.  I think he said he has a sister in Florida somewhere.  Either that or his church has a sister church there.  I passed on the blessing.

Later we went to the library at Santa Susana, a church in the Piazza Republica.  They have a small library but some attractive selections so we signed up (L35000 for a family for six months).  The library is run by volunteers, except a priest is the chief librarian.  He gets to decide what books to buy.

5/5/99

In preparation for our visit to the Catacomb at St. Stephen's Basilica, I read par of The Roman Catholics and Their Martyrs, Hertling and Kirschbaum.  The authors are priests (Society of Jesuits, I think), and the book is a bit old (1950's).  Many of the things they say destroy popular myths associated with the catacombs.  That makes me think that they provide accurate information untinged by religious beliefs.

The word 'catacomb,' says Baruffa in The Catacombs of St. Callixtus, comes from 'cataumbus.' This means 'hollow.'  The word  was used to refer to a depression (hollow) in the ground, designating the location of the cemetery now called the Catacombs of St. Sebastian.  This is near a location on Appian Way (Appia Antica, I think he means) opposite the Circus of Maxentius.  The hollow may have been caused by the digging of 'tuff' (volcanic rock) for Rome's walls.

The term 'catacomb' was not used by early Christians, not coming into use until the middle ages.  The term 'hollow' has come to refer to 1) underground burial grounds, 2) later and almost entirely in error, places of refuge used during the persecutions, and 3) as pilgrimage sites where saints and martyrs were buried and venerated.

There are about 35 catacombs in Rome.  There are about 500,000 people buried in them.  The passages are narrow, dark, humid, and when they were in use as cemeteries, they must have smelled horribly due to the rotting bodies.  Passages extend three levels down and altogether the tunnels extend 50 miles or more.  They dug down to add burial space as it was cheaper to cut through the soft, volcanic rock than to buy more land for above ground tombs.  Most tombs are hollowed out of the passage walls.  The body was placed inside and the opening sealed over.  There are some larger rooms where masses and meals were sometimes held.  The meals were to honor departed family members.

The catacombs were used between the first, or more probably the second century, and the fourth or fifth.  The early ones were privately owned but later ownership and care were passed to the Church.  Names of the individual catacombs came from saints, martyrs or the original owners of the land.

At the beginning of the fifth century, they stopped using the catacombs, burying the dead above ground instead, often right above the catacombs.  From the fifth to the ninth century the catacombs were regarded as sanctuaries of the martyrs, and pilgrims visited the tombs.  Underground rooms were created, galleries widened, and small basilicas excavated.  The Goths seriously damaged such holy places (537-38).  Tolila (545-46) and the Lombards (735) also caused harm.  In the ninth century the important relics were transferred and the catacombs abandoned.  Vegetation and the ravages of time obscured the entrances.  People became very confused about the names of the various cemeteries.

The catacombs were scarcely known in the middle ages.  In the 16th century this began to change.  A Philip Neri and his disciples came to the galleries under St. Stephen Church to pray and meditate.  A follower, Caesar Barronius, began his 'Annuales eccleseastici' which apparently talked about the catacombs.  At the same time, Onofrio Panvinio began to study Christian archeology and Roman topography.  In 1568 he published a work on early Christian cemeteries.

In June of 1578, workers digging for pozzuolan, used to make cement, came upon a well-preserved cemetery outside Porta Salaria.  I think this is just outside the historical center on the northeast side.  This led to the exploration of galleries at many levels, and the discovery of frescoes and inscriptions, which greatly interested Pope Gregory XIII.  Subsequently, other catacombs became objects of attention.  In the following years Bosio sketched and took notes of what he saw, published in 1629 as Roma Sotteranea.

The main interest in the catacombs at this time was to use or construe discoveries to counter the Reformation.  Researchers wanted most of all to show that there was a perfect continuity between the teaching of the earliest times and that of the present.  This was not possible using the evidence found, the authors point out, and the effort tainted their work.

The researchers presumed that the catacombs and the contents were from the time of the persecutions.  However, most tombs came from times of peace in the 4th and 5th centuries.  They assumed that the catacombs were places of refuge, known not to be the case.  The researches marked the passages, moved and removed objects, and generally made a mess of things.

In 1849, an archeologist named DeRossi, working for the Church, found a piece of marble with the letters "nelius Martr" while exploring a shed that was formerly a chapel.  This was on Via Appia and Strada delle Sette Chiese (Seven Church Street).  He knew that most such items were not moved from their original location so he thought that the tomb must be nearby.  He figured that the name was 'Cornelius', a martyr/Pope known from early Christian documents.  DeRossi also knew that there was an unexplored cemetery below.  He convinced the Pope to buy the property.  After some exploring he found the tombs of many popes from the third century.  DeRossi is known for conducting the first scientific investigation of the catacomb called Callistus.

In 1919, the underground chamber of Aurelius Felicissimus was discovered by accident.  He was a member of a Gnostic sect.  In 1920 the great cemetery of St. Pamphilus was discovered on Salaria Vetus.

Interesting notes:  1) 'Cemetery' comes from the Greek 'to sleep.'  Cemetery was the word used by the Christians, being more in line with their beliefs than 'Necropolis,' 'city of the dead,' used by pagans.  2) St. Stephen did not die of the arrow wounds with which he is depicted. He recovered from these wounds, declared his faith to the emperor again, and was beaten to death.  One of the arrows, or part of it, is on display in the Church.  The arrow is open to the air.

The visit to the catacomb was guided by a not very instructive but friendly woman.  She tells us just a few things as we go, such as:  1) the tombs in the toured area are empty; 2) archeologists found a pagan tomb on the site, which we saw.  I think she said the tomb is from the second century BCE.

Afterwards we walked along the Appia Antica with Gloria and Gaston.  The road is being repaired.  Otherwise walking along this narrow road would be dangerous.  We pass a few large, older houses but do not see any tombs that are to be found along this road somewhere.  It could be that the walls and embankments hid these from view.

Our guide recommended a restaurant called Viletta, near Piramide, but it was closed.  Instead the four of us ate lunch at a trattoria nearby.  Excellent antipasto with all of my favorite veggies.  Gloria had an artichoke, a young one that was so tender she ate the whole thing, including the stem.  I'll have to try cooking the stem, too.  Gloria and Gaston shared a finely prepared swordfish.

5/6/99

Peg stayed in to try to shake an inner ear infection.  She learned from reading Living and Working in Italy that it is illegal 1) for condominiums to heat the building after a certain date 2)  for two persons to ride on a scooter (they do it all the time) 3) to live here without an identity number.  Even tourists here one day could be fined if they do not have that number, for which you must stand in line for who knows how many hours.  There are many other such laws in Italy that suffer from apparently ridiculous wording or are simply ignored by everyone, including the police.  The author also said that there are about 250,000 parking places and 750,000 cars in Rome.

Esperanza gave us an onion pie.  She called it a pizza.  It was onions and olives and I am not sure what else stuffed into a crust.  She also left us a huge bread, also courtesy of her friends from Napoli.  She offered to give us some Italian lessons in exchange for being able to practice her English with us.

5/8-9/99
 

Lucia had invited us to go to Orvieto Saturday.  We met her at Termini to tell her that it was too long a journey for one day.  Besides, we are planning to go to Venice Monday, and Peg needs to rest more as her eustachian tube is still clogged.

Sunday Gloria and Gaston came for dinner.  We were treated to more boating mis-adventures.  One day they went looking at boats without intending to buy one.   They saw a Choy Lee (it may be 'Choi') and fell in love with it.  That was before they knew anything about teak decks.  I think they bought it the next day.

At that time he was itching to retire.  He said he had talked to many dying people and not once did anyone say, "I wish I had a few more weeks to work."  Or "I spent enough time with my family."  But his partners could not find anyone to replace him right away.  A year later he started taking off every other month.  Their first month off they went to their boat in Florida and crossed to the Bahamas.  Along the way the wind changed.  He did not know that this meant a norther was blowing in.  It started blowing when they were in still in the Gulf Stream.  Confused and rough seas struck their boat.  Gloria  refused to take the helm.  Gaston had to steer for many hours without a rest.  The one time Gloria had to take the helm, when he Gaston was changing sails, she steered the wrong way.  The boom swung and knocked him out cold.  He was lucky not to have been propelled overboard.  He could not use one arm for the rest of the trip.   Finally they made it to the entrance to the port.  The engine died just as they were ready to head in.  They called for help and it cost them $600 for a tow of about 1/4 mile.

They were joined by friends who had never been boating.  On the way back to Florida they encountered more bad weather.  Gaston was at the helm for 48 hours without a rest.  They finally made it back to their dock after another $400 towing expense.

After they retired they sent time cruising the Florida Keys.  One day she was sunbathing on the front deck and he was thinking about her, not where he was. They hit rock, tearing the bottom out.  After it was repaired, they eventually enjoyed some good cruising in Florida and the Bahamas.

For dinner we had a great eggplant dish that Peg did.  I cooked onions stuffed with bread crumbs, and fennel with rosemary.  I made focaccia, which is a thin bread, with basil, oregano and rosemary.  Mighty fine!

5/11/99

Venice has a long history.  The Doge, its leader, was elected as early as 697.  By about 1000, Venice was the great trading link between Europe and the East.  It was nominally part of the Byzantine Empire, but negotiated with the Emperor and everyone else on equal terms.  By the 12th century the vast trading power of the Moslems declined.  Venice, Genoa (later to give us Columbus and John Cabot), Pisa and many other coastal cities became economically powerful, accumulating vast wealth.  From the 11-13th, the Lombard-Romanesque style of architecture was dominant.  The many palaces for which Venice is famous are in this style.

In 1261 Genoa aided the Byzantines in retaking Constantinople, causing the fortunes of Venice to ebb for a time.  Still, Venetian and Genoese colonies on the shore of the Black Sea traded in leather, fur and fish from the north as well as Oriental goods from as far away as India and China.

Pope Innocent favored the 4th crusade, but ex-communicated the Venetians for the capture of Zara and Constantinople (Istanbul).  He changed his mind when the Crusaders acknowledged the Pope as supreme over the Greek Church.  He crowned Baldwin of Flanders as the first of the six Emperors of the east between 1204 and 61.

Before the end of 13th century Venetian and Genovesian galleys began pulling into Flanders and England.  By the early 14th century, the main cities of Italy were more populous than other cities in Western Europe, except Paris.  In 1378 the long enduring rivalry with Genoa resulted in war.   Genoa nearly prevailed but by 1380, Venice had turned the tide with a major naval victory.  Under the Doge Francesco Foscari (1423-57), Venice struggled with Milan.  Its territory reached as far as Brescua and Bergamo.  In 1453,Constantinople fell, beginning a long decline in the fortunes of Venice.

The Renaissance, starting in the 15th century, produced Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgine, Titian and Tintoretto.  Venice's peak of power and prosperity occurred in this period.  In 1490, Aldo Manuzio established the first Italian printing press.  To him we owe the cursive Italian script said to be based on the handwriting of Petrarch.  Great advances were made in the production of beautiful texts.

After the 16th century, the growing strength of the Ottoman Empire prevented the immense trading on which the Venetians depended.  New trade routes in the Atlantic and elsewhere reduced Europe's dependence on the middle east trade.   Venice has not recovered from these losses, and now is largely depended on tourism.  Nonetheless, the fabulous, nearly unfathomable wealth and power accumulated by the merchants of Venice produced remarkable architecture, fine art, great learning and innovation in a location as defensible as it is beautiful and remarkable.

Two trains go to Venice, one the InterCity, the other the high speed EuroStar.  We are in no rush so we take the Intercity (L67,000 per person one way).  We leave at eight a.m. and arrive around 2:00 p.m.  The train enters Venice by means of a bridge.  The train station sits on the Grand Canal, which we crossed to find the hotel we reserved at the station.  You can catch the water buses from here, too, but we have no need for them yet.  As we pass crowds go on and off and we see boats skillfully ply the canal, going every which way like motor scooters at an intersection.

We stayed at the Locana Salieri (L110,000).  It is a small hotel on a small canal with little and mostly quiet traffic.  Our comfortable room is on the canal side.  Less than a foot below the sidewalk lurks the crafts' liquid, a delight for tourists, an enemy of brick and mortar, an annoyance for those who must cross the steep bridges daily.

Our first destination was the Plaza San Marcos.  We went by foot through the maze of streets, some so small they should be called alleys, and over bridges steep and small.  Official signs point the way.  Sometimes.  There are unofficial ones painted on walls in odd spots to fill the gaps.  Sometimes.  Other times you follow your nose or the crowds, if there are any;  today there aren't.  We had to backtrack once or twice.  In these narrow, tunnel-like ways there is much to see everywhere you look, so it does not matter unless your foot aches or your back is tired.  Which is what feet and backs do when you are touring.  It's obliged of them, you know.  Ignore them by just enjoying the crumbling textures of medieval structures and crazy buttresses stretched between the buildings.

From some tiny hole we emerge onto the Piazza.  The Piazza looks delicate, despite its massive size.  Perhaps it's the fine detailing on the buildings and the proportions.   Or perhaps it's the contrast between the plump domes of somber St. Mark's and the other structures.

Inside the church, you walk over sinking sections of the floor as you gaze upward at heavenly mosaics.  This gives you an eerie feeling.  In the treasury, purchases and booty 1000 years or older sit in fragile glass cases.  The taped guide takes you around, "Next on your right is a piece of the flagellation column.  Over it is..." somebody or another's bones.  Must be St. Mark's but I forget.  The collection is exquisite, as is the enormous, golden, dazzling, gem embedded screen behind the altar.  If Venice had this Church alone, it would be worth a visit.

Four mighty bronze horses strut atop the church entrance.  Above them the bell tower offers views but not of the latticework of the canals, so we wait for another tower.  There are many such round brick towers.  Anyone who was someone had one.

A bar we saw earlier offering pasta fagioli (pasta with beans) was closing as we found it after retracing our steps, sort of, from the Piazza.  We found another, carefully omitted from the guide books.  Not a find, sadly another ordinary affair.  The menu said they had been here for thirty years.  We can't imagine why.

As we lay to rest, singers and accordion players in groups of gondoliers paddled outside our window.  The musicians and the singers are very good.  So what if the little boats are full of tourists paying through the nose!   Me, I'm a tourist today, so I get to think it's charming, and it is unique, after all.

5/12/99

Venice is normally quiet, except around the water bus stops.  We hear footsteps and only footsteps through our window, and an occasional hushed word between passers-by.  There are no cars as the bridges are made for pedestrians only.  In all but a few canals, just a few motorized boats travel about.  Deliveries are by a combination of  boat, cart and foot.  The carts have a wheel at the front.  Using the back two wheels as a pivot, they lift the front wheel onto the next step.  They roll forward on it, and then lift the other two wheels onto the step.  Thus they climb the steps of the many bridges.  Very clever.

Early and before the locals began walking to work, I sat on the sharply pitched bridge just outside our door.  Venice is a place to draw but it takes days to do anything.  It is thick with structure so there is so much to sort out.  I sketched the two buildings and a plump dome at the end of our canal.   I think I see faint signs of progress in my sketching.  More depth, better proportion, more freedom to the lines.   But I really messed up on the plump dome.

So much was I concentrating that forty-five minutes passed in a flash, and I didn't notice the dredging going on behind me.  They push metal barriers into the mud to cut off the water.  Then they do what they have to do, dredge, lay pipes, run wires, etc.  There are no visible telephone and electrical wires in Venice.  I guess they run the lines under water and then snake them under or through the foundations of the buildings.  We saw several crews working on wires they had dug from the mud.

The one day pass for the water taxies is L18,000 ($10).  We plan to make good use of it: Murano, Burano and San Giorgio.  First we stop at Chiesa San Giorgio.  The Venetian Palladium is the architect and if you know even a little about him, you'll immediately think that the work is his.  After a gawk at the interior, we gave Padre Pio a donation of L3,000.  He treated us to a magnificent view of Venice.  From this height you are reminded of how the small city barely sits out of the water, and how that water's countless acres press upon every edge relentlessly.  Behind us are the barrier islands protecting the city in the marsh.  Across the way is the entrance to the Grand Canal, the Piazza San Marco and the plump dome of St. Mark's.  You can see the Canal giant 'S' making its way through the city.  You can see perhaps hundreds of canals, making Venice look like a delicate piece of lace.

If I were an electronic device I might see NATO jets dropping loads upon the Serbs across the Adriatic.  The fighting is not really too far from here, though you probably won't notice anything as a tourist.  A short time ago, fisherman from the area found unexploded bombs in their nets.  Some men were injured by explosions.

On we go, about five hours in all.  One stage of the journey takes us through the glass production and sales section.  We walked around for about an hour, seeing nothing but glass shops.   Although my fondness for glass is fragile, I admired the endless variety and great beauty of many of the countless pieces we saw.  Through one door we watched some glass blowers at work.

On a seldom visited isle we ate lunch while awaiting the next bus, not due for an hour.  It was one of the better and less expensive places we've been in at L45,000 including wine.  The wine was a white.  It had a lot of carbonization, though not as much as champagne.   The waiter said it was a regional wine, and a favorite of the locals.  I was surprised when he said it was very popular.  It wasn't as bad as something like an Asti Spumante, and not as carbonated,  but not much better.  Later we had a glass of local wine on tap, very good and not at all fizzy.

After a short rest we are on our way again to Piazza San Marco.  Peg wants to see it in the dark.   For Peg it's no fun to go the way you know.  She has to find a new way.  This time we got pretty damn lost and had to backtrack several times.  When we emerged from yet another mouse hole onto the plaza, night had fallen and the Piazza was full of music.  A foursome played a Strauss waltz with great skill and gusto.  In another corner a jazz band played popular songs.  In a third, orchestra pieces waited for another group to stop.  A small crowd of tourists listened without buying the expensive cappuccinos the white-coated waiters stood ready to serve.  No matter, for upstairs I saw diners galore.  Nearby the waters lap still at the Plaza's edge, threatening to make us wade.  St. Mark's is even more gloomy in the growing night.  The dome looks even more plump and harder, much harder to draw.

The Africans who earlier offered purses, sunglasses and other items displayed on sheets stretched on the ground, made their way home, toting boxes and bags.  Where home was, I cannot guess.  Not under a bridge, not in Venice.

5/13/99

Ravenna was once the capital of the Empire and an important port.  Today it's the fine mosaics and churches from the 500's that attract visitors.  Via train we passed through countless fields of greens, fruit trees, grapes, corn,  enveloped in the aroma of olives.  Italy has been an importer of vegetables at times in the past, but seeing all this it's amazing to think how that could have been.

Ravenna was probably inhabited by the Umbrians, of whom I know nothing, and later occupied by Etruscans, of whom I know but a little.  In the second century BCE it became Roman. Augustus chose it as the home port for the eastern Mediterranean fleet.  In 402 it became the capital of the Western Empire when Honorius felt it would better protected against invasions from the north than Milan.  In 476 Odiacer chose Ravenna as his royal seat after his successful invasion from the North.

In 493 Ravenna Theodoric occupied the town, and he remained for the next thirty years.  He built many monuments and restored Trajan's aqueduct.  Theodoric practiced the Arian religion.  This is a form of Christianity.  He built Spirito Santo, Bassietero degli Ariani, and Sant'Appolinare Nuovo, all of which we are going to see today.

In 540 the Byzantine army captured Ravenna, putting an end to the reign of the Goths, who had swept down in front of the Huns.  I think that at this time, the Goths were also still in control of most of Spain.  Constantinople ruled Italy with this as its seat.  The emperor's representatives were called "the Exarchs."  In 751 the Lombards came from the north.  The port that made Ravenna important, Porto di Clase, silted up and the economy died.  In 1431 Ravenna was ruled by the Venetians.  At the beginning of the 16th century it came under control of the Papal government but by then it was of little importance.

One of its famous churches, St. Appolinare in Clase, was consecrated in 549.  The term 'in clase' comes from "Civitus Classis," an ancient Roman city, which stood near the port.   The church now stands in a wide green plain outside the Ravenna.   Saint Appolinare arrived from Antioch, in Asia Minor (now Turkey), late in the 1st or early 2nd century, to set up the first Christian community here.  He is buried where the church now stands.  The church is a large red brick structure with a bell tower of 10th C.  It is 37.5 meters (over 100 feet) high!  There are wonderful mosaics in the interior, which is 55 x 30 meters.  Also inside are ten greek marble tombs of the bishops of Ravenna.    (We did not go to this church.)

St. Vitale, our first stop, turned out to be my favorite.  It is a large dome, with three concentric circles somehow built into its intriguing structure.  It looks as old as the hills, but not due to decay but rather the style.  The only mosaics are around the altar but they are the most marvelous imaginable.  The portrait of Empress Theodora (under restoration) is here,  and Peg says she is in every costume book of the era.  The artists did an excellent job with the drapes on her robes, and her facial and other features are skillfully portrayed.  Grass, sheep, birds and plants are part of the natural scenes.  Jesus' hand gently, lovingly touch a sheep's muzzle.  The natural appearance of the mosaic is a powerful contrast with the ichnographic imagery one often finds in tile work.

Next door is Galla Placidia's Mausoleum.  It is a squat building whose ceiling is mosaiced with natural scenes.  A large portion of the ceiling is given over to stars on a dark blue background.

We walked to St. Appolinare Nuovo.  It was built in the late 5th early 6th century for Theodoric, dedicated to Christ the Redeemer.  In 540 the Byzantines named it for St. Martin.  It took its present name in the 9th century when relics of St. Appolinare were supposedly transferred here.  The bell tower is 38 meters tall, the interior is 42 x 21.  There are 3 naves and 24 columns.   On one side of the main aisle there is a gigantic mosaic of The Virgin's Procession.  There are 22 virgins, all bigger than life, beautifully portrayed.

The Neponian Baptistery also contains important mosaics.  The dome shows the baptism of Christ, standing naked in the river.  Not the usual pose.

We enjoyed lunch at the Ca' de Ven.  You sit at long tables with the other guests.  The white wine of the house was crisp, delicate and the local product. The vegetables were choicely done.

Six hours later, the train deposited us at Termini.  It was only 9:30 p.m.

5/17/99

We saw an advertisement for a concert at a local university.  After several bus rides around the campus we finally found the salon, along the way asking several people for assistance.  The offering was a Gamalan Orchestra, which is a traditional Indonesian music ensemble.  The group is sponsored by and made up of employees of the Indonesian embassy in Rome.  Indonesians, Italians, at least one American and other nationalities made up this group.  The production came complete with commentary, an introduction to traditional gamalan music.  The announcer spoke in clear Italian.  I could distinguish every word.  I understood a fair amount, for which my Spanish helped dramatically.  He said each Indonesian embassy sponsors an ensemble to promote Indonesian culture.  He also explained the various instruments, all percussion, and the tonal system, which I could not understand well enough to translate.  There was one dance number in which an elaborately costumed woman postured and stared dramatically.  The dance was dramatic and tense, although she hardly moved for the entire fifteen minutes.  She stared at some unseen deity, perhaps, who apparently made her wide-eyed with awe.  Her few movements were sudden and almost shocking, perhaps due to the contrast with her previous fits of shaking and staring.  The music is strictly rhythmic, with a distinct oriental flare.

5/18/99

In response to my ad in Wanted in Rome seeking 'scambio' (interchange of English for Italian), Arturo and Diana (not their real names) met us at the Piazza del Popolo at 5:00 p.m.  They are Italians in the mid to late 50's.  He was born in Rome and she in Siracusa (Syracuse), the famous ancient Greek city of Sicily.  They own a house on the often invaded island.  It is a large house with a great view of the sea.  However, he finds Sicily boring and frustrating.  Arturo describes himself first as a linguist and second as a financier.  He speaks French in addition to English.  His financial interests focus upon advertising.  Mostly they are retired.  He likes living in the U.S.  She loves New York City most of all, and I think he agrees.  They like the excitement, and having so many things to do.  He also likes San Francisco.

Arturo spoke disparagingly of the typical American tourist coming to Italy.

"Venice!  Oh yes, I had a fabulous lasagna there."

Or, "Pisa!  Oh, I had a great pork roast..." or whatever they ate.

He thinks Americans have no concept of true wealth.  True wealth is what you see in churches, in buildings, in cities, in culture, he says.  The incredible sums and more importantly, the high level of culture it took to build or acquire these treasures makes what Americans have now pale in comparison.  He is condescending about it, but he has a point.   After a while he remarked that it was a pleasure to see us enjoying the immense beauty that Rome had to offer. This is something not all that common among us country bumpkins, the cultural Clampets just arrived in the big city.

He said Italian is more like music and the notes (grammar) must be studied a lot, and learned well.  Then you learn to pluck and stroke the strings to make it a joy to hear. Avoid the newspapers and don't rely too much on daily conversations.  These are good sources of bad Italian.  I can imagine what he thinks of the advertising language and the conversations of teen age girls I eavesdrop on in the subways.

Arturo's English is very good.  He needs to stay in practice, he says, and current.  He gets plenty of practice today.  I found it difficult to get and keep us talking in Italian for more than a moment.  Of course he could tell right away that I was early in my studies.  When I told him we had been here a little more than a month, he said, "That's why your Italian..."   He caught himself before he finished.   Arturo seemed disappointed that we were not taking lessons, a failure showing that we are not taking the language seriously enough.   Peg and Diana chirped away endlessly in a combination of Italian, French and English.

After about an hour, we departed.  Arturo offered to meet us again.  He also offered to correct our written Italian via email.  As I write this on May 26, I have written him two notes and he has responded to both, correcting and encouraging.  On the 26th he wrote:

 Your Italian is improving, keep working on it. Italian is not a language-- like English is that can be learned by ear. Grammar should be studied I m afraid or you will never come to grips with the great language. Remember 4 pillars, reading- writing- talking- understanding, the said 4 pillars should grow  simultaneously or the board on them (the soft Italian language) will be lopsided and nothing will stand on it. So I suggest you take a good grammar and you humbly begin to exercise. Remember the ear can be misleading,  jargon and approximation will make you feel miserable the moment you try to read.

He told us that he is writing a novel in English.

5/19-22/99

These are quiet days.  We go to the movies, buy what we need, explore quiet streets.  On the 21st we invited Gaston and Gloria over for lunch.  I cooked all morning and had a great time preparing lunch: stuffed mushrooms, stuffed zucchini, turkish style.  The last is stuffed with onions, crushed garlic,  feta cheese, parsley, and a little dill.  We had a little pasta cover by a tomato sauce with ricotta mixed in.  Excellent and right out of the Italian cookbook we bought.  Peg made some great meatballs that we served on the side.

Somehow we talked until from 2:00 until 7:30, nary a moment's silence.  Boating and travel make great conversational topics.  Either Gloria or Gaston always has a boat story that I like.  Gloria told one.  They anchored where the guide book said, "It's beautiful but the bottom does not hold an anchor."  They ignored the warning and soon someone in a dinghy was telling them they were about to hit the dock.  The engine started immediately and they avoided trouble by mere inches.   Another time, they were anchored in the Dry Tortugas (about 60 miles west of the Florida Keys).  By then, they had become very cautious about everything connected with boating, including anchoring.  They backed off the anchor at 1000, 1500 and then 3000 rpm.  Then Gaston dove to see if the anchor had taken hold (this is called 'diving on the anchor').  It was buried.  At dusk a man and his grandson came in, dropped the anchor, backed up gently and ate dinner.  Gaston was saying, "What's wrong with me?  It takes me thirty minutes to set an anchor and here they are done in five minutes."  Then a storm came in and soon there was a hollering.  Gramps and grandson were within inches of another boat, their anchor having dragged across the bottom.

On the 22nd, we went to two outdoor markets, one near San Giovane in Laterno, the other near Piramide.  We also visited a store selling international foods.  They had an excellent and large wine collection.  Saturday night we went to a concert in San Ignazio.  A group of 12 women from Macedonia sang like angels.

5/23/99

Today we followed the Michelin walk that starts at Ponte Sant'Angelo. The three central arches of the bridge were built under Hadrian in about 136.  On the bridge stand fine statues of St. Peter and Paul.  Bernini produced the ten angels, in the baroque style (1667).  Across the way is a government building studded with sculpture.

Via Giulia is next, one of the few straight streets in Rome.  It was laid down under orders from the Florentine and Medici, Pope Julius II, in the 16th century.  Upscale shops and residences line the street now, but for a while number 52 housed papal prisoners.  Number 66 is Palazzo Saccheti.  Not far away on Via dei Vecchi is Palazzo Sforza Cesarini, built in the 15th century by the future Pope Alexander VI.

Across the Corso Vittorio Emanuelle is the Chiesa Nuova, founded in the 12th century and then called Santa Maria in Vallicella.  In the 15th century the church was rebuilt for St. Phillip Neri, the monk whose proclivity to meditate in the catacombs led to their discovery (see May 5th entry). There are three paintings by Rubens, and other fine works.

We attended another concert at San Ignazio in the evening after a ridiculous fifty-five minute wait for the bus.  After all that, the group from a church in Colorado offered a below par concert.  I venture that you have to practice a great deal to sound good in these large churches as the acoustics seem to magnify every flaw.

Arturo wrote to ask if we would like to come and stay with him and Diana in Sicily.  Peg would edit his novel and in exchange, Arturo would teach me Italian.  He said we would have to be there for quite a while and that he only asked that we help with the food costs while we are there.

We felt that we barely knew these people and Peg did not think she needed to see Arturo every day to do the editing he needed done.  Besides, I was not sure I could stand being a country bumpkin for weeks on end.

5/24/99

Today we attended a concert at the university.  A chamber orchestra played a Ravel and a Schumann.  This was an excellent performance.  We are just one of 30 in the audience.  The custom here requires the concerts to being about twenty minutes late.  While we waited we perused the art exhibit with some fine drawings and paintings on display.

5/25-28/99

Vespers at the Chiesa Nuova.  The music is heavenly.  I read A Brief History of Time.

This email arrived from Arturo:

" Today I shall go to the British Council, get myself some books and very soon I want to leave for Sicily. This city doesn't mean much to me anymore and the island is still the right answer in this period of my life.

 ...At your age it is not as easy as it has been for me to make your way into a new language.  I was very little when I studied French in Montreux and then English in London Soho's sooty streets (we have Soho in London and Soho in N Y (in NY it means South of Houston street-pronounce HAUSTON and it is  in downtown N.Y Are you familiar with NY? You are). Plus my teacher in English has been Lawrence Durrell and every morning in our daily verbal sparring over this and that, we turned the two great languages in and out like gloves. But in the end he gave me his English to the full and I gave him my Italian to the full. Then he died and took with him his musical plangency, his irretrievable cadence, his transparent lines so imbued with Mediterranean flavor. But times are changed and pupils and teachers are no longer the same, moreover exigencies aren't the same anymore. From what I see you need to learn a very basic Italian which will barely take you to the drugstore and that should not be difficult."

5/29-31/99

I became ill last night as we walked in the cool, late evening air.  I remember my aunt telling me that the NIGHT AIR contained special, secret things to make you sick.  I was not feeling too bad so we went to the Vatican Museums as planned, but I became increasing ill as the day wore on.  I ended up with a horrible headache.

The museums are beyond compare in size and quality.  You enter via a large and stunning spiral finely carved staircase.  They offer you a color coded short or long routing.  The routes take you in various ways through the palaces, only part of which are given to the enormous collections dating to about 1500.  There are at least nine museums in all.

We made our way slowly through the miles of corridors.  I was most impressed by the map gallery.  Of course the Sistine Chapel cannot fail to stun.  When I was here last, it was about half-cleaned, and now the restoration is complete.  It's monumental, powerfully painted, strongly colored, and alone takes a day or more to see properly, if you can lay down, for otherwise, your neck will break.

6/1/99

Maurizio Cipriani (Maurice Cypress, as in the tree) called in response to the Wanted in Rome Ad.  He speaks English well, he said, and he needs to practice.  He used to teach Italian to foreigners but it was too hard to make a living.  Now he reupholsters furniture.  We agreed to meet at our apartment this coming Saturday.  At his suggestion we will confirm with one another 24 hours in advance.

I am quite ill with either a flu or allergies, or both.

6/2/99

 Peg has coffee with Arturo and Diana

Sick.  Too sick to go anywhere.  Coughing.  I asked Peg to check to see that my will is still in the important papers file.  I get no extra sympathy with that ploy.  She goes to meet Arturo and Diana.  He was going to take us to a park near his house.  I told Peg not to go near a park.  It would be full of pollen!

Peg reported upon her return that Arturo was much more enjoyable this time than the first time.  He wants her to edit his novel.

6/3/99

Hack, hack.  Moan.

6/4/99

Lucia called.  Her landlady returned at last and they began arguing the moment she came in.  Lucia moved out although she is returning to Ireland on the 19th of June.  She said she tried to tell the lady she was unhappy about some things and the lady would do nothing but yell, refusing to reason with her at all.  Today she is going to the house to try to get her deposit back today.

She decided to return to Ireland as living and working her is too difficult.  She has to have a roommate to keep the rent down, and with one exception, she has had difficulties.  The Italian men annoy her with clicks and gestures.  The bank has given her problems.  The clerks are rude.  She has always lived in the center of town where there are lots of tourists, so we think that there are more rude clerks there.  In our neighborhood the people in the stores are almost always very friendly.

6/6/99

Cipriani called in the morning to confirm; I had lost his number.  He arrived thirty minutes early because he had to leave early to do some work.  He asks if I have a grammar book.  I showed him Italian Made Easy and he read through parts of it.  I said I needed help with stress, since there are so many exceptions to the 'next to the last syllable' rule.  I pointed out that the text bolding of the stressed syllable has faded, that the book was not printed well.  Anyway, I tried to point it out but he would not listen.  He reminds me of Arturo.  Several people have remarked and I have read that the Italians really don't know that there are other people in the room with them.  I am beginning to think this is true.  Well, Maurizio eventually realizes I am there and we agree on a procedure.  First we work on Italian (one hour) and then English (one hour).

I started to read.  He can't stop himself from finishing a word for me if I hesitate the slightest bit.   I finally said, 'You already know how to say it, let me say it!  Correct me if I don't get it right, but let me finish."   Ok, he said, and things go more smoothly.  Then he tells me to slow down, after he had been in effect rushing me.  His suggestion was good.  I do better when I go slower.

One of my main difficulties is with 'gli,' which means 'to him' and 'the.'  You have to velcro your tongue to the roof of your mouth while the 'li' sound (you don't pronounce the 'g') escapes from the side of your tongue. He helped me with this and some other difficulties.  Generally Italian is not hard to pronounce, especially once you know where to place the stress.  Italian is phonetically regular, like Spanish.  I did very well on most of the translations.

Peg's Italian is a little behind mine.  She reads a little, but made too many mistakes, so he said, "Let me read, you listen."  This was not a bad idea, but he was brusque.

After a while, he took a look around at our apartment and said, "This place is poorly furnished."  Who the hell asked him?  No wonder the Italians fight with each other all the time, and were too busy killing each other to exploit the Americas.

He read in English for about 30 minutes.  He did not have anything with him to read.  We had some books that are quite difficult to read, such as my Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkings.  We also had the USA Today I receive via email; I can't seem to get the NY Times subscription to work.  USA Today is written in a very hip style and is very hard for a foreigner to understand.  He did ok on most of the translations, and his pronunciation is good.  My aunt was born in Sicily.  She never could master the 'H' and said 'amburger' and 'eck.' Moe does not have this problem.

Peg sent the day working on Arturo's book.  Turns out he studied with the novelist Lawrence Durrell, and his uncle or some relative wrote fairly well-known novel published in 1960.

I slept very little last night, less than two hours.  The NIGHT AIR started me coughing and I coughed twice a minute all night long.

6/7/99

Cough, cough, cough.

Some guy at 530 am is walking down the street screaming, "Sono povero, sono povero."  (I am poor, I am poor.)  If I would have been thinking, I would have yelled, "Sono dormito, sono dormito."  (I was sleeping, I was sleeping)

6/8/99

At last I feel better.

We dined with Lori, a young woman from Australia, last night.  Peg met her on the net and invited her to visit.  Her family is Lebanese.  Her parents immigrated to Australia before they met.  She is touring Europe for a year or so.  She just graduated from college and can't be much more than 23.  We ate at a osteria near our apartment.  A osteria is an inn, a category of eatery that were once exclusively connected with youth hostels.  They sometimes still are.  Originally they offered good, cheap food and sometimes still do.  This one is good and moderately priced.  They offer a huge veggie/seafood antipasto selection for about $6.  Salmon, mussels.  All the usual veggies.  Fresh mozzarella.  The house wine costs $4 a bottle and is not bad.  Lori had no understanding of Italian cuisine beyond pizza so this was an excellent introduction to some of the better aspects of Italian cooking.

6/9/99

Lucia could not get away for lunch so Peg and I had a lovely lunch on our own.

We found out that here in Italy most residences have three kilowatts of electricity.  You can get more but then you must pay 30% more for each kilowatt you use!  Furthermore, if you live in a condominium, we were told, the entire building must take the addition service.

Three kilowatts is 16 amps, enough to run one window air conditioner or a water heater but not both.  We can't run our water heater, the washer and the frig at the same time!

The temperature got to 35 C (c=9/5f +32=95F).  They consider this about 5 degrees above normal.  Our apartment is in the shade as it faces north.  We are not uncomfortable but we do need the fan.

Arturo emailed us from Sicily:   Obviously he wants us to visit, so Peg can work on his novel, which is written much better than his note indicates.

6/10/99

To avoid the heat we left the house at 8:30 a.m. for another of the thirty or so walks set forth in the Michelin guide, this one called the 'Coloseo'.  San Pietro in Vinicolo (St Peter in the Chains), only about 200 meters from the Coliseum, was consecrated in the 5th century.  The church is important for Michaelangelo's famous and fabulous "Moses,"  a fine example of Michaelangelo's work.  He is massive, muscular, intimidating.  There is also the inevitable relic, in this case, the chains that bound St. Peter.  Originally there were two chains, one used in Jerusalem, the other in  Rome.  There is now one chain, and allegedly a miracle joined them together.  Or a welder.

The nave is lined on either side with massive rows of ancient marble columns topped by doric capitals.  Doric capitals are of the oldest style of capital and are very plain.  Each column is joined to those on either side by simple, elegant arches.  The building is large enough to show a diminishing perspective.

The Moses was to be part of Pope Julius II's mausoleum, which was to be in the center of St. Peter's Basilica.  Three stories high and sporting forty huge statues, bronze reliefs and more, the massive structure would have made the head of the della Rovere family famous forever.  However, Julius died in 1512 and not too longer thereafter, so did the project.  After all, the next pope came from a different family.

In the crypt there are the relics of the Macabees, seven martyred brothers whose life found immortality in the Old Testament.  If this is true, then these are certainly among the oldest relics I have been near.  You can't get in the crypt to see them.

From San Pietro we descended Monte Celio, Rome's most pleasant and greenest hill, enjoying partial views of the Coliseum while we walked through the park.  After an espresso we rested a moment on a park bench.  People walked their dogs and strolled with their babies under the tall, domed cypress trees.  The first rain in a month or more stopped, and the sun poked through.  Workers above us mowed an area that appeared to be on the roof of one of the many brick ruins.

This area became part of Rome in the 7th century B.C. and was inhabited continuously until the 1100's. Nero built his massive palace here after the great fire of 64.  Where the Coliseum now stands there was a lake.  Nero killed himself in 68, the lake was drained and the Coliseum built.  Other parts of what Nero built were razed and the rest became part of the Baths of Titus and Trajan.  A structure called the Golden House still stands but is open only to professionals.  It was not discovered until the Renaissance.  Raphael and other artists enthused about the paintings. Rooms with paintings on the wall were underground like grottoes, so the decorative themes were called "grotesques."  In the 1100's the Norman Robert Guiscard took Rome from the Germans and in the process destroyed many of the structures.

Down the hill and across the street is San Clemente, founded in the fourth century in a private house.  It is one of the oldest basilicas in the city.  It was damaged by Guiscard in 1184 but rebuilt shortly after.  The basic design of the building is identical to San Peter in Chains.  Two rows of large marble columns, linked by arches, hold up the roof and set off the main aisle from the narrow side aisles.  This church, however, has a choir in front of the altar set off by a waist-high marble fence.  There are two marble lecterns.  The main area has a well preserved Cosmati floor from the 1100's.  The Cosmati was a wealthy family who donated many marble floors to the church.

In the apse is a magnificent mosaic from the 12th century, as I recall.  There are natural elements such as birds and, I think, blue sky, and green areas which reminded me of the beautiful mosaics of Ravenna. On the opposite end of the church and in a corner stands St. Catherine's chapel.  Its ceiling and walls are simply and elegantly painted.

The admission fee of L4000 allows a visit to the two levels below the main level.  These large areas were excavated in the mid-1800's.  They found statues and other items in the dirt and rubble.  There are early cartoons in the form of frescoes with some of the earliest forms of vulgar Latin telling the story. The Michelin says they may be the world's first comic strip.  Excavators found other frescoes, in varying states of preservation.

Another story down is the temple of Mithreas.  At this level there are at least two houses, which the exhibit said were from the Republic era.  One became the temple of Mithreas in the 3rd century BCE.   One of the temple's important rooms contains an altar with benches on either side.  This room was used for feasts.  The altar shows the God sacrificing a bull.  The religion emphasized loyalty and was popular among Roman soldiers.  I think that the exhibit said that the soldiers brought the religion to Rome in about 48 BCE, but if so, then the Michelin's date of the 3rd century BCE might be incorrect.

The next item on the tour is another church, Santi Quattro Coronati, originally put up in the fourth century.  It is up a steep hill.  It became part of a papal fortress in the 800's.  Thus it stood until Guiscard's men arrived.  It was soon rebuilt into today's much smaller church.  From its completion in the 1100's until the 1400's it housed Benedictine monks, then Augustinian nuns became the sole occupants.  They may still be here, for as we entered about a dozen nuns were sitting near the altar, doing rosaries, I guess.  The Michelin says that no one knows who the Four Coronati are.  I didn't find much about the interior to remark upon.  No wonder Michelin didn't give any stars.

I continue to bumble along with the language.  I am sure I sound like a buffoon.  Peg studies everyday.  I am less faithful, having to struggle to find sufficient motive.

In the market the other day they were selling zucchini greens, stalks and all!  The guy said to boil the whole plant, then saute it with tomatoes, onions and garlic.  We tried it and it was quite good.

They must have a motto here:  "If you can mow it, you can eat it."

6/11/99

Our walking takes us to some of the best-preserved ancient structures in Rome.  We are near the Tiber just west of the Palatine and the Coliseum.  This area's history dates back 2500 years to the time of the Etruscans and the Republic.  There were temples and administrative structures, some of which survive.  There were large markets here, probably due to its proximity to the river.

Santa Maria in Cosmedin, on the site of an earlier administrative center from the 6th century, became a Greek church to provide services to local Greeks in the 8th or 9th century.  "Cosmedin" is a district in Istanbul, which was the head of the Roman Empire at that time.  On the porch is the famous Bocca Della Verit .  Legend says that the mouth will crush your hand if you had a guilt conscience.  The face is a marine divinity that served as a drain cover, maybe from the Temple of Hercules which was nearby.

Inside a musty aroma fills the air, and you feel immediately that the church is old, older feeling than churches that are several hundred years its senior.  A mosaic from the 8th century is in the small shop that sells postcards and other souvenirs.  An aging priest takes our postcard money.

Nearby is the Arch of Janus from the fourth century.  It should be called the "Arches of Janus" for this massive unit has four arches through which two major roads passed.  Janus was a god. A few steps and you are facing the Arch of the Money Changers, built in 204 by the money changers guild.  It is intricately carved, and has sculptures of Emperor Severus and his wife.

Back towards the Tevere is my favorite old Roman structure, the delicate Tempo di Vesta.  It is a round temple, with tall (about 20 feet), delicate columns all the way about, topped by beautiful Corinthian capitals.  The roof is tile.  No one knows who the temple was dedicated to, but it is dated from the time of Augustus, so it's about 2000 years old.  It was used as a church in the middle ages.  You cannot enter nor even see inside.

Next to is the rectangular Tempio della Fortuna Virile.  It dates from the 2nd century BCE, the Republican era, and is very well preserved.  The roof is intact, also of tile, though it can hardly be the original.  The temple is typical of the Etruscans, by its shape and the fact that it is built on a high base.  It was used as a church starting about the 9th century.  You can see inside a little, but you can't get in.

This has been my favorite tour so far in Rome, and one of my favorite of all time.
 

6/12/99

Here we go again!  Onto the bus to the 125 foot high Aventino hill, situated roughly between the Palatine and the Tevere.  The area was occupied before the Republic, dating back at least until the 5th century B.C.  (The last king was removed in 509, when the Republic period began).  In the Republican period many merchants lived here, due to the proximity to the trading docks on the river.  There were many temples.  It was a fancy residential area during the Empire period. The area was leveled by the Visigoths in 410.

In a depression lies the remains of the Circus Maximus.  It is an enormous track, about 500 meters from one end to the other.  At its height the seating capacity was 150,000, the envy of many football team owners today.  The 3200 year old obelisk now in the Piazza del Popolo was placed here in 10 BCE.  The track was used until the fourth century.  There is little left to look at.

Santa Prisca was originally built in the second century, rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, and contains a second century Mithraeum uncovered by excavations.  You have to make an appointment for a visit.  There is evidence of some first and second century buildings nearby.

Santa Sabina (5th century) is much like the churches we have been seeing, with two long rows of large columns creating three aisles.  The ceiling is wooden.  The Michelin goes on and on about it, but I did not find it that interesting or especially attractive.

6/13/99

We met Gloria and Gaston for a walk on the Janiculum Hill.  We started at the bottom, just off the Tevere near the Isola Tiberina. and made our way uphill until we reached a steep hill.  Just before the top was an even steeper staircase.  Once we flew up the hill and stairs, we were treated to a panoramic view of Rome in front of San Pietro in Montorio.  Then we walked into the nearby park, whose street is lined with busts of Garibaldi's men.  Garibaldi unified Italy late in the 1800's, capturing Sicily with 1000 men and dethroning the Bourbon king.  There are more splendid views of the city, and a large monument to Garibaldi and another to his wife.  This walk took a few hours.  We were not far from Gaston and Gloria's apartment, so we went there for a rest.

6/14/99

Grottoferrata is near Frascati, but the bus goes there without going through Frascati.  Gloria and Gaston are with us, carrying sandwiches they bought from a shop near their house.  We've got their knife which I sharpened for them.  We ate under some trees on this cool day, accompanied with a fine bottle of Frascati  wine.

Grottaferrata is 300 meters above sea-level on the western slope of the Alban Hills.  There is a burial cave from the Republican era, protected by an iron gate.  This cave and gate give the city its name.  St. Nilo founded an abbey here in 1004.  In 1473, Cardinal Julian della Rovere, later Pope Julian II, fortified the town.  He ringed the town with walls and moats, still with us today.

The museum in the monastery has burial items from the fifth century BCE, but the museum was closed until later in the day, as was the church.  There is also a center for the study of Byzantine music.  The church employs Greek-Byzantine rites.  This is the largest center of Byzantine culture in Italy.

We walked to Frascati, three kilometers away, along the tree-lined street.  The temperature is cool, in the mid-seventies, the breeze refreshing, and the mansions along both sides of the road are beautiful and probably quite expensive, at least $300,000 but probably $500,000 or more.

After the short bus ride down the hill, we went to the University del Tor Vergata for the weekly concert.  This time we enjoyed the Societa della Musica Antica.  This university group of about 15 musicians played secular music from the XII-XVI centuries.  Among the instruments was a kind of organ, where the air was pumped with one hand while the other played the music.  Also there was a cranked, droning instrument, and some middle-eastern sounding recorders.  The young woman singers were marvelous, with lusty, deep voices, and one of the men who sang and played the lute was quite good.  The other men got a 'C."

The announcer was costumed as a midget.  Her legs were bound underneath and she walked on her knees.  Her arms were also bound so she appeared to have just stumps.  She was funny and lively.

6/16/99  Wednesday

We went to Viterbo,  a very worthwhile, one hour bus trip from Rome. Viterbo is a medieval town with the usual narrow, winding streets.  It rained for the fist time since early May as we wandered about.  We took in the museum, which featured an extensive collection of Etruscan statues, if I recall correctly.

La Trattoria del Archetto is a tiny restaurant.  The four outdoor tables are beneath a medieval arch in the oldest section of town.  The place is run by a husband-wife team.  He is the chef and he took our orders while she was busy elsewhere.  Peg pointed to what an old woman was eating and said, in her best Italian, that she wanted the same thing.  They brought her a hearty soup with an egg in it, a barely cooked egg at that, put in at the last moment.  The name of this soup turned out to be 'acqua cotta' literally 'cooked water.' It is a  specialty of this area.    He showed us a copy of a newspaper article where he is lauded for his acqua cotta.  I ate 'spezzatino con vitello e fagioli.'  This is a veal stew with big white beans in it.  The veal was very tender, the sauce rich and dark.  We liked this place better than most we have been to, and it was very inexpensive.

6/17/99

Lucia is returning to Ireland tomorrow.  We met her and Debbie for dinner in Trastevere at Lucia's favorite pizzeria.  We sat outside in the cool evening.   Our waiter was curt at first, providing yet another example of how different the Italians who work in heavily touristed areas can be.

Lucia said that she just could not make her life work well here.  Living with roommates that she did not get along with, the high price of housing, the curtness of the shopkeepers (she lives in Trastevere) and too many Italian men leering at her were her complaints.  She loved the food, the city's sights, had no trouble finding work, could put up with the commute to Ponte Lungo (near us), and enjoyed the few Italian friends she had made along the way.  Most of her friends were English speaking.

Debbie joined us.  An American, he grew up on Long Island and later moved to California.  She has a laid back California feel about her.  Her masters degree is in Italian but she is teaching English here.  Debbie plans to return to California in the fall.  Italian women are superficial, caring about dress and cosmetics more than anything, says Debbie.  Given how good they look almost all the time, this seems plausible.

6/18/99

In the morning we took Michelin's three star Quirinale walk, skipping the Trevi Fountain.  The Piazza del Quirinale is lined with statues Sixtus (late 16th century) took from Constantine's Baths nearby.  In the 18th century Pius VI added the obelisk from Augustus' mausoleum.  This large plaza has proportionate palaces along its borders.  One of them is the three star Palazzo del Quirinale.  It was built by Gregory XIII (late 16th century) as yet another papal summer palace.  Bernini did some of the work.  In 1808, Pope Pius VII shut himself in this building after Napoleon conquered Italy and sent soldiers to help the Pope see reason.  Pius ex-communicated Napoleon, futilely, as Pius was taken to Fountainbleau.  I was taken there once, too, but they insisted that I leave that same day.  Pius got to stay until Napoleon was deposed.  We did not enter the building, as it is only open on Sundays.

The other palaces are in top condition on the outside, at least, probably inside as well, as there are important governmental offices here.  Armed guards stand about, ushering us out of the way when a limousine departs from a courtyard.  Very close by is an attractive, shaded park.

Sant'Andrea al Quirinale is also on this walk, but it is closed.  This church is on the corner where four statues sit in water fountains.

In the evening we returned to Santi Apostoli, the Church of the Apostles to listen to the Orchestra of Horace Mann School in New York City.  The high school contingent impressively played a Vivaldi Concerto to start, and did a fine job of a dozen or so other pieces.  To get into this orchestra you must be selected via a competition.  This is not your ordinary high school fiddlin'.

6/20/99

Today is the festival of music, a European-wide event.  We have a big brochure noting the many concerts all over town in the morning and more in the evening.  In the morning we went to three of the places advertised.  There was no music at two of them and at a third they were just setting up late in the morning.  We gave up.

6/21/99

Take the Metro Line B to Rebibbia, sit on the bus for an hour or so, and you are in Tivoli.   With a population of about 50,000, this ancient town has beautiful views of the valley below.  We enjoy not only the ancient monuments, the medieval architecture and the views, but also the cool weather that has been with us for the past week or so.

The town dates from as early as 1200 B.C.  The Latin village Tibur probably stood on the site of the Acropolis.  It was linked to Rome by means of the Via Tiburtina, which the bus took on to get here.   The oldest structures are the square-based defensive walls that date from the 4th century BCE.  During the second century BCE the town was radically changed, and they built The Sanctuary of Hercules the Victor and the Temple of the Cough.  The town's brochure called it the Cough! Unfortunately I did not write down the Italian name.   The Forum was also built then, where the Piazza del Duomo now stands.

The acropolis is visible from a nearby bridge.  You can only see the Temple of Vesta from this vantage.  It is a round structure, some columns and part of the interior wall still standing.  We got up close, saw it and the rectangular Temple of Sybil, with only three walls remaining.  Both were churches during the middle ages, and stand just a few meters apart.

New city walls were built under Frederick Barbarossa in 1155 and the town enlarged.  In the 11th and 12th centuries many turret houses were built, used for housing and defense.  These houses had no doors on the entry level.  You had to climb into the second floor (first floor in European parlance) using a retractable ladder.

Villa d'Este from  the XVI century was closed, as this was Monday.   It was designed by Ligorio for Cardinal d'Este in the mid 1500's.

The town's feel is medieval:  narrow and  mostly steep streets, stone, brick and stucco building materials, burnt sienna and similar tints color the stucco.  There's a great view most every way you turn.

In the afternoon we went to Villa Adriana, built by the Emperor Adriana.  This was really a mid-size town that was occupied only during the summer months.  It was built 118-138 down the hill from Tivoli.  There are huge baths and ponds, large libraries, theaters, temples, many of which were reproductions of buildings the Emperor Hadrian saw on his travels.

Olives, grapes and other fruits grow in the Tivoli area.  Travertine, a rock used in ancient Rome, forms the basis of the local economy.

We came with Gaston, Gloria and Regin.  Regin was born outside Berlin in then East Germany.  She speaks French and a little English.   She had meningitis and thinks that a breeze could cause a relapse so her head is swathed in cloth.   This makes her look like a high class French woman from the 1920's.  Like many Italians, she closes windows even when it is hot.

6/22/99

I have been drawing a great deal lately.  Peg says I've made another major improvement.  She gave me lessons on perspective that helped.   You can't see the top of my roofs anymore when you aren't supposed to,  unless I forget what I know.  There are arches everywhere here and they are fun to draw.   I have been using a pen and I like the results better than when I use just lead.  I am also trying my hand at the human figure.  Lips look like sausages still, but at least they're roundish, and have some depth.  But all the faces look the same.  A woman fell asleep on the bus to Viterbo so I practiced rendering her sharp nose; it looked more like a sausage than anything, so 'rendering' is the right word.  She was attractive, and I am glad she didn't notice or worse want to see what I was up to.  She had helped us find the right bus, and spoke just a little English.

We attended a lecture on Raphael around 5 p.m. with Debbie and Lori, visitors from Georgia staying with us for a week or so.  In typical Italian style, the presenters didn't begin preparations until 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, and then they dropped the tray of slides!  The lecturer was very good, as are almost all the presenters we have heard, even with his mediocre English in the way.   He showed us one painting that was in progress when Pope Sixtus (?) died.  His successor had already been painted in the procession as a cardinal, and since this was a fresco, Raphael left the successor where he was and then painted him again as Pope.  To change a fresco, you have to break it.

When Nero died (around 60 AD) his successor tore down most of the palace Nero had built right near where the Coliseum is now.  However, he left some portions of the Golden House (Nero's huge Palace) and these were discovered in the time of Raphael.  The remnants looked like caves to the discoverers.  They called the paintings 'grotesques,' from the Italian word 'grotto' meaning 'cave.'   This referred to style of the frescos in the grottoes.  The artist who executed this work was the best of his time.  His name was Fabullus, from whom we got the word "fabulous.'  His work strongly influenced Raphael and his followers.

Raphael's uncle was the architect of the Vatican, which the latter had largely destroyed to begin building what we see today, except Bernini's later modifications.  The uncle introduced Raphael to Michelangelo, also in the Vatican at the time.  Raphael admired Michelangelo's treatment of the human figure and Raphael's future efforts strongly reflect Michelangelo's influence.  Raphael by this time had assistants.  After his death, the assistants finished his last work in the manner Raphael perfected.  Thus started a school of art now called Mannerism.

Our guests only heard and saw bits and pieces of the presentation, as they were sleeping from time to time in the corner.  Who but us would drag two jet lagged tourists to a lecture, including slides for which the room must be darkened, the first day they arrive?

We plan to go to Sicily in mid July for about a month. Peg is going to work on Arturo's book.  This is Sicily, damn near Africa, and we are going to be south of where did he say, Tunis?  Don't worry, he says, we've got fans.  Fans.  They've also got sand blowing in from Africa.

On 6/23/99, I went to Ostia Antica with our Debbie and Teri.   Getting there is a cinch.  Hop on the train at the Piramide metro stop on Line B.  The train for Ostia Antica is next door.

Ostia Antica is a well preserved set of ruins of the old port town or Ostia.   It approaches Pompeii in quality and importance, although having seen both, I think that Pompeii preservations are generally better.  In Pompeii there are houses that are more complete, more art, better theaters, better commercial buildings.  However, Ostia was more important historically as it was Rome's port, 'ostia' meaning mouth, referring to the mouth of the Tiber.  The town goes back to the third century BCE.  The Roman writer Levy says that Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome after Romulus, extended Rome's dominion to the
sea.  However, archeologists say that the city was founded sometime in the third century BCE.

Ostia was important to Rome's conquest of the Mediterranean.  In 278 B.C. the port served the fleet fighting the Carthaginians, whose city was located in what we call today Tunisia.  Perhaps General Patton in a prior life (in which he believed) docked here after the battle for dominion of the Mediterranean, an act he was to repeat nearly 2000 ears later.  Scipio's army left from here for Spain in 217 BCE.  This was to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Carthaginian General Hannibal, who by this time had already crossed the Alps.

The river no longer reaches Ostia Antica and the sea is now about six kilometers away as the Tiber's silt has extended the land.  The port was outside town, as Emperor Claudius, one of the better rulers of Rome, decided that this was a more protected area.  He wanted to deflect winds from the southwest (Libeccio)and southeast (Scirocco). The port was about where the Leonardo da Vinci airport is now.  Later, another harbor was created to allow for expanded activity.

Mud covered the site after Rome's decline with the arrival of the Visigoths, in the 5th century.  Malaria plagued the population, and eventually the city was abandoned.  Much of its beauty was pillaged for building materials.  Excavations began around the turn of this century.

When you enter, you pass by old tombs that lined the road leading into the city.   It was the policy in ancient Rome to bury the dead within the city limits, as we saw in the Catacombs (see 5/5/99).  Then you pass the ruined main gate of the city, whose arch must have been a splendor.  Through it passed many of the town's 100,000 residents (peak). Just the suggestion of a curved line remains.

Many dwellings you see are apartments, called 'insula.'  These multi- story dwellings were inhabited by the lower classes.  The wealthier lived in detached houses (villas).  The building material is tufa, volcanic rock.  There are no roofs in the ruins.  I guess that the roof joists were wooden with terracotta (literally 'cooked soil) roof tiles.  Workers formed these tiles on one of their legs, making them wider at the top and narrower at the bottom so they fit inside one another readily.

Farther up on the left are huge warehouses that stored large shipments of grain and other items sent on to Rome and other destinations inland.  Behind the amphitheater, which has been restored unremarkably, the Piazzalle delle Corporazioni has beautiful mosaics in front of each stall.  These depicted the merchant's occupation and his country of origin.  Temple ruins sit in the center of the large square.  Farther along, near Casa di Diana, we found facilities for food preparation.  This may have been the Thermopolium, a bar.  We did not go into the museum, but it sounds worthwhile, for many objects found on the site are housed here.

The Forum contains the largest temple.  You walk up a wide, steep staircase and find yourself inside a large building sans roof.
Another temple sits at the far end of the plaza.  Archeologists have assembled various decorative elements on a low wall so you can see them easily.

By the time we got here we were tired and decided to skip the last portion. Setting back toward the entrance on another route, we wandered into what were large and beautiful baths.  We climbed to the second story of the philosophers' house for a panoramic view. We studied wall drawings.  There was plenty left to see before we just had to stop.

The admission is L8000.

6/24/99

St. Peter's is a place you can go to many times and each time you will see something new.  This time we went to crypt of St Peter below the main altar, and to the treasury.

We are lunch at il Gropolo d' Oro.   This is the restaurant talked about in The Last Italian by William Murray (Simon and Shuster, 1991).  He tells of the hard life of these restauranters, their long commutes, the noise, the long hours, and the like.  It is in the historic center.  Two of the men mentioned are here today, and we met them.  Peg had them sign our copy of the book.  They are gracious and funny.  One of them came to our table saying, in Italian, "What have I done that someone wants to see me?"  He was joking in tone, but I am sure he has had a complaint or two in thirty years of serving meals.  The food was not at all shabby and the price quite reasonable.  A shot of Sambuca, the anise liquor, was on the house.

6/25/99

Across from Santa Susana near Republica is Santa Maria della Vittoria, St. Mary of the Victory.  Three stars in the Michelin.  When you open the door, you feel like you entered a gigantic jewel box.  I think that's how Lori put it.  Marble and gold adorn every square inch that isn't fresco.

Here you see the 'Ecstasy of St. Teresa' by Bernini.  Teresa says that God sent a seraph to pierce her heart.  "The pain was so sharp that I cried aloud but at the same time I experienced such delight that I wished it would last for ever."  Maybe the seraph aimed at little lower, Teresa.

We ate dinner al fresco in Trastevere.  I had antipasto only, lots of mussels diversely prepared.  This cost L16000, only about $9.00.  The menu read L14,000, but since I ate just this for dinner and thus took a larger than normal portion, they added a little extra.  This is common practice and apparently adding L2000 is common, as this has happened twice now.  Afterwards, we walked about in the too quaint zone.  Musicians played for diners everywhere.  Africans displayed purses and other wares on the sidewalks.  The more prosperous vendors had portable tables.  Young women gathered about the jewelry, money exchanging hands.  Trastevere was full, and looking prosperous.

6/26/99

A young woman I met is here studying international law for the summer.  She said that Italian police do not need probable cause to stop and search.  She also noted that the U.S. government has been known to get U.S. citizens by force when they feel that the foreign government is holding them unjustly or subjecting them to excessively harsh treatment.

6/28/99

Gloria and Gaston invited their Norwegian neighbors over for dinner the other night.  This couple has a two-year-old baby and a big dog.  He is studying for a masters degree, part of which he had to do in the Vatican, just a few blocks away.  Since Gloria and Gaston are going to Norway this summer, the couple offered to tell them about their country of the far north.  They are leaving the end of June, as are Gaston and Gloria.

Recently they requested the security deposit back from the landlord's mother.  The mother said she did not have it, and they would have to wait for her son to return.  He was in Brazil and she was not sure when he was coming back.  Fortunately he turned up a few days ago.  He was drunk when they talked to him.   He said he did not have their deposit, having spent it all in Brazil.  Then he left.  The couple was in a panic.  They could ill afford to lose the 2.6 million lire ($1400)!  Their rent was L1.3 million for a tiny room (10'x10'), tiny kitchen and bathroom.  This is typical of what you get in the areas popular with short term renters.

They had no contract, as they had not officially used an agent.  However, an agent had given them their landlord's name and so they called him.  He said he could talk to them.   Meanwhile, Gaston  told them to threaten the landlord with calling the police.  This would result in a visit to him and the likely discovery that he had not reported the income, had not registered the couple with the police as required, or engaged in some other improper behavior.  These efforts paid off with a full return of the deposit.  Now they can drive back to Norway with money in their pockets, and meet up with Gaston and Gloria at their summer cabin.

6/29/99

Disasters strike.  Two of them in the same day!  First, our zip back-up drive fails to come on.  I called their 800 number in Italy that connects us with the technicians in Ireland.  They are sending us a new power pack under warranty.  It will take about ten days to arrive.  A short while later,  the computer screen goes nearly black!  It is impossible to read.

I played with the computer a while.  I eventually noticed that the screen remained illuminated at a certain angle, a sharp one, making it hard to use but possible.  Then I called the manufacturer in Texas and they had no help to offer.  They do not accept repairs for out of warranty computers and are not sure if the policy in Italy is the same.  The number for Italy was in the computer's book, a number in Milan.  I called and no one there spoke English.  My Italian was sufficient and I obtained the phone number of the company representative in Rome.  Peg called them in turn and got their address.

6/30/99

Shopping for a computer here is very different from shopping in the U.S.  We went to three stores today.  Each of them had one laptop only, one did not even have spec sheets.  Prices are comparable to those in the U.S., however, which was a pleasant surprise.   Gaston told us that Dell sells here.  Their web site is quite good.  All the major brands are available, but you may have to wait to get some models.

At 5:00 p.m. we set out from Termini, the central rail station, for the repair facility, a few miles west of the Vatican.  The journey should have taken no more than 35 minutes.  At 6:15 we were still several miles from our destination.  The area west of the Vatican has some of the worst traffic we have seen, says the Brit on the bus with us.  We had to give up, since the shop closed at 6:30.