Rick Steves Must Be Stopped

I have noticed this ever since we arrived in Italy, but its presence in Venice is more pronounced than elsewhere: we are living in a post-Fodor’s world, and Rick Steves is now the dominant travel-culture guru for Americans. This is plainly evident by witnessing the mobs outside of Steves’ recommended restaurants, and with more careful observation, travelers can be seen to try and take advantage of all of the quirky “tips” that he provides to bypass long lines at popular attractions. His influence is now so great that the only way to successfully navigate this city is to employ counter-tips. One must think “What would Rick do?” and then act in a contrary manner.

Today was a shopping day for Carol. Yes, I know that’s redundant. I should have said that today was a successful shopping day for Carol in that she cleaned out an antique jewelry shop of their old earrings. If you see her wearing them, tell her that you like them. I spent the day at the fish market, but I didn’t buy anything.

Carol has mentioned to me that I have not posted any photos of the gondolas, and that people may not believe that we are really in Venice (Italy) if I don’t. So, I am posting a gondola picture taken from our balcony.

This is our last night in Venice, so we are going to San Marco after dinner to sit and listen to the music, drink overpriced bellinis and get charged coperto (cover charge) and servicio (mandatory tip) for the privilege. Please note that Rick Steves does not recommend this.

Just Like the Real One in Vegas

Venice, Italy – it’s just like the real one in Vegas, but with more pigeons. We arrived here yesterday and turned in Lucille (and the car she is attached to) at the airport and then took a water taxi to our hotel near San Marco. This all happened in the middle of a thunderstorm with lightning and driving rain, but it was still exciting to see Venice (Italy) for the first time. Our hotel was a really nice surprise. When you book a room off the internet, you never really know what you are going to get. This time it turned out rather well. Our room has a balcony and overlooks the San Moisé canal. It comes complete with a pink and powder blue Murano chandelier.We can hear the gondoliers singing all day as they pass under our window. This can be either romantic or annoying depending on your mood. Some gondoliers are better singers than others.

The tourist horde has apparently followed us here from Tuscany but, like Siena, the streets here are almost deserted at dawn and it has been fun for me to get out early and explore. Carol does not share this view. As she points out, the stores are not open at 6am. Later in the day, we took the complimentary water taxi to the island of Murano where we received a complimentary tour of the glass factory. This was followed by the mandatory tour of the glass showroom where we valiantly resisted the suggestion that we purchase a set of water glasses at €110 each (minimum quantity 6). Carol was inspired, however, to add glass to her shopping requirements.

Meanwhile, Bruce and Carla are driving to Florence, with stops in Chianti country on the way. Carol and I really enjoyed the time we got to spend with them; it was sort of like having wine group every day.

Channelling T.H. White

With Lucille, in a typically foul mood and leading the way, the four of us headed off to the hill town of San Gimignano. This is the place where the leading families of the day competed with each other to build the tallest towers. We did some shopping and sightseeing, and when a sudden rain shower hit, we took some lunch on the piazza under the (partial) protection of an umbrella. After lunch, we split up with Carol and I going to the ruined abbey at San Galgano. Bruce and Carla headed north to spend the afternoon in Cortona. Bruce has been making fun of me because I have been having great difficulty pronouncing “San Gimignano”. Interestingly, Bruce seems to have equal trouble remembering “Cortona”. I think I now have Bruce convinced that it is actually “Cordoba”. Carla is not amused.

The San Galgano Abbey was a fascinating place. In addition to the ruins themselves, there is a small chapel nearby that held an interesting surprise for us. Back in the twelfth century a knight and warlord named Sir Galgano had a visitation from the Archangel Gabriel who told him to make peace with the neighboring warlords. Taking the visitation seriously, Galgano climbed to the top of the nearest hill, took out his sword, and stuck it up to the hilt into a rock outcropping. Needless to say, this got the locals very excited and they immediately began construction of a chapel over the site. Less than a year later Galgano died, so the locals cut off his head and added his skull to the chapel. By this time, the story of the sword had made its way to the Vatican, and since the visitation counted as a miracle, Galgano was fast-tracked to sainthood. This, in turn, led to the construction of the abbey in his name. More than 800 years later, the sword is still there though it is hard to see clearly because they have it covered with a ridiculous plexiglas bubble. In any case, this is probably where the legend of King Arthur and the sword and the stone came from.

Meanwhile, the abbey thrived for a couple of centuries until the Plague wiped out most of the population in the area, including many of the monks. With too few monks to perform the necessary maintenance on the abbey (like cleaning the gutters), the roof finally caved in and the remaining monks gave up and left. The ruins of the abbey have remained pretty much unchanged since that time.

On the drive back to Siena we gagged and tied Lucille and placed her in the trunk. It was a very pleasant drive.

Take Me to Siena, Lucille

Before today, I was convinced that all of the tourists in Italy had descended upon, and had taken up residence in, the Cinque Terre. I have since learned that there exists an entire reserve army of tourists stationed in Siena. Where do these people come from? Don’t they have jobs? In any case, I’m pretty sure that all of the tourists are now fully accounted for, which means that Venice will be wide open for us next week.

Carol and I followed Bruce and Carla to Siena; a three hour drive from Santa Margherita Ligura. Both of our cars were equipped with the Italian derivative of the Hertz NeverLost™ navigation system. Unlike the American version, this one rarely knows where it is or how to get to the programmed destination. We have named her Lucille. However, thanks to Bruce’s unfailing sense of listening to Carla’s directions, we managed to find our hotel within the city walls with no problem. This is a very nice place, located about 200 meters from the Duomo, with a garden looking out over Tuscany. The rooms are big, and the bathrooms even bigger.

Siena is a wonderful place. Before we got here, I used to think that this was the place where they had the running of the bulls. I have been corrected in this misconception, and after seeing the Il Campo, I realized that this is where they stage the horse races in the town square twice each summer. I’ll bet this place is a real zoo during those events. I can’t help but think that it would be really cool if they held the horse races AND the running of the bulls at the same time. Carol and I toured the Duomo, and the streets surrounding the Il Campo. The gelato is very good here.

As Carol commented to me, the quality of the light here is different from the coast. The Cinque Terre sky is bright, and well, beachy. Here, there is a softness and diffuseness that somehow seems more compatible with the scenery of the Tuscan hills. Carol seemed to feel that the pigeons roosting in the brickwork of the hotel walls added to the overall ambiance. We spent a very enjoyable evening sampling the local wine (Orvieto) in the hotel garden watching the sunset. The sky lived up to its reputation. It must have been reading romance novels. We finished the day with a wonderful meal at a nearby restaurant that was topped off with Amaretto and Grappa.

Walked the Cinque Terre... Got the T-Shirt

Seeing (and walking) all of the Cinque Terre in one day is a lot like undertaking a religious pilgrimage; the kind that involves self-flogging and wearing hair-shirts. The similarity exists due to the topology of the towns, which is mostly vertical. Going anywhere in town involves going up or down several flights of stairs – sometimes both at once. Such poor urban planning does have the happy consequence of making these towns very scenic and picturesque, and well worth all of the effort. We took the train down from Santa Margherita Ligure (aka home base) to the first town, hopped a boat and took it to the last town, and then ate, drank and walked our way back. Carla power-walked most of it with the rest of us struggling to keep up. Actually, we only walked back as far as the middle town (Corniglia) where we were confronted with the choice of taking the 384 stairs from the trail up to the town itself, or hopping on a train to Vernazza. Common sense won out, so we declared victory and took the train.

Tomorrow, Bruce is taking the girls on a scouting expedition into Tuscany to search out promising wineries and to track down the long-lost relatives of a friend of a friend in a town whose name that I cannot pronounce. I will be staying here to take pictures at the fish market and to watch after Carol’s duck. On Saturday, we are all off to Siena.

Uno Terre

Today, Carol and I managed to take in one of the Cinque Terre towns. We had originally planned to do more, but no one told us how hot and crowded it was going to be. In the end, we did a complete tour of Vernazza. This is a town that is owned and managed by cats. Lots of them. During the day, the cats sit around and act normal. At night, when the town shuts down, it’s the cats who count the daily receipts and hand out bonuses to the human inhabitants… I’m pretty sure this is how it works.

Meanwhile, Bruce and Carla went to Genoa to pick up their car and then head up to San Remo for the day where they had a great time and wonderful lunch on the beach. We all had dinner together tonight at a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves. Our waitress said he was very nice. She didn’t say the same about us, but I think she was just being shy. Tomorrow, the four of us are heading back to Cinque Terre and this time we hope to knock them all off our list.

No Make A Fun of My Car

We have arrived in Italy safely, though without a reliable source of Internet, so our postings may be sporadic. Added to that is the fact that Bruce has determined that we should sample every variety of wine made in Tuscany. The times when the requisite level of sobriety required for posting to this blog correspond to those moments when internet service is actually available will act to further limit our updates. We hope you will understand.

To bring you up to date; we have landed in Milan, gotten our poor excuse for an automobile, and have (somehow) managed to navigate ourselves to the lovely town of Santa Margherita Ligure where we met up with Bruce and Carla. Santa Margherita is the town where the poorer millionaires hang out while waiting to be invited to the big table at Portofino, five kilometers up the coast. We took the local bus up to Portofino this morning to hang out and take some pictures – altogether a lovely time, but I think that we all prefer it here. Tomorrow, Bruce and Carla head up to San Remo for the day while Carol and I head south to visit the Cinque Terre town of Vernazza. We will meet up again tomorrow night to compare notes… and drink more wine. BTW, the food has been great (duh!), and we are all gaining weight. More later. Oh!, and Carol bought a rubber duck!

We're Off Again...

This time it's the Cinque Terre, Siena, and Venice. We'll be gone for about two weeks, spending most of it with Bruce and Carla. Bruce has promised that he will be buying all of the wine, so it should be fun. So far on our journey, we have made it to the Business Lounge at Sea-Tac, so there is not a lot to report. Expect more entries in the next couple of days. Oh, and thanks to Big Dave for the ride to the airport.