Italian Caper, Chapter 2

It must have been our trip to the exhibition "Roma e i Barbari" in Venice, because Annie has decided that our next trip will be ... Rome!  (And this time with Louise and Daniel.)

I've already started the homework with a copy of the Blue Guide to Rome.  Not as many pictures as the trusty DK, but more rewarding bed-table reading.  It also gives me a reason to keep up my Italian (I've already bought the bigger dictionary) and make a whole new section on my Netflix queue.  (Go there and search "Rome" and "Roman" and you'll see how it would take a year just to watch all the DVDs!

So now the lists start:  Painters, sculptors and writers.  Museums and churches.  Friends' favorite places.  Music.  Books to read.  Ah, planning the trip!

We're Back!

A wonderful evening yesterday in Venice.  Took the vaporetto the length of the Grand Canal as the sun set, then had dinner in a lovely little restaurant, outdoors in a corner of San Marco.  Did half our packing last night and threw outselves into bed early.

Up at 6:30 this morning and finished packing.  Wound up taking a (speedboat) taxi to the airport (long story, will blog later) and will say that although it's very pricey, it's also the most thrilling taxi ride I ever had.

Everything went very smoothly at the airport.  8 hour flight with 3 count 'em three movies.  Annie was an angel.  We talked over the trip and "interviewed" each other for the blog.  

A little bit of circling the airport due to bad weather here in NYC, but landed less than an hour late and pretty much breezed through custom/immigration and caught a taxi to Grand Central, where Annie's grandfather was waiting for us.  A quick handoff and Annie was on her way home, as was I.

Nice to be home.  Wireless Internet!   American plumbing!  My own bed!!

A note to the fans:

I have about a dozen posts written on my laptop and ready to go, but nothing seems to work in terms of cutting and pasting from Microsoft Word into Google's Blogspot format.  If anyone really knows how to do this, I'd really like some help.

I also have a ton of photos, which I'll be uploading to Shutterfly this evening, at which time I'll post a link here on the blog.

If anyone wants me to just send them the unpublished blogs postings as a PDF, send an e-mail to hslev@aol.com and I'll send them along.

A Perfect Last Day

Annie tapped my shoulder to get up. "9 o'clock, Uncle Harold, and I'm up first!"

A quick breakfast and we were on our way. "Our" traghetto across the Grand Canal, up to Fondamente Nuovo and we were off to Torcello. Much back and forth at the vaporetto stop, as the trip to Torcello involves a stop at Murano and a transfer at Burano, and above the noise of the crowd and the boat they both sound almost exactly the same.

About 40 minutes and one transfer later, there were were on Torcello, headed for the oldest church in the Lagoon, dating from the turn of the last millennium. A gorgeous day, wisteria by the path, birds singing and a light breeze.

The church was amazing. Building almost entirely in brick, with a soaring nave topped by an ancient wooden ceiling, with amazing mosaics and sculpture. Filled with sunlight as opposed to the dim mystery of St. Mark's, you got a feeling of the beginning of modern Christianity. Mosaics were fascinating and moving. Above the nave a huge Christ, a smaller Annunciation and the twelve Apostles. On the other end, above the door, and incredible narrative of ... well, a very complicated Last Judgement, if I were to put it briefly. Dozens of characters, several different styles, gold and bright colors. Annie listened to the audioguide twice through, taking it all in.

Next door, in another 1,000 year old church, a wedding was taking place, so we were only able to get in briefly at the end of our visit. It was totally different, much more intimate. Imagine St. Julien le Pauvre in brick, bathed in Italian sunlight.

A quick lunch, where Annie had a hot dog with .... drumroll ... ketchup! She almost felt she should forgo the hotdog althogether in order to stay ketchup-free for the whole trip, but I said that since it was the last day, you'd all understand. (We've had much discussion over the week whether it would be easier to give up ketchup or gelato, but the answer seems to be complicated by location, so we'll let it go for now.)

Onto Burano, famous for lace and brightly-colored, charming low houses. It didn't disappoint. I also think I've discovered where Annie's great-grandmother Jarmila Novotna got the lace-trimmed table linens Louise has inherited, as we saw their like in almost every window. She must have come over from Lido to do a little shopping every year.

Back home with a stop to spend the last of Aunt Marion's gift money on an adorable outfit for Annie. Since it's our last evening we're going to cut this short and go walk down the Grand Canal one final time, as the setting sun gilds each palazzo and every gondolier.

Next post will probably be from NYC!

Mi Chiamo Bianca

Annie and I discussed long and hard what to name Kitty, who is completely white. Snow? Snowball? And then she asked me what the word for "white flower" is in Italian. "Fiore Bianco," I said. We both looked at each other. "Bianca!" And so Kitty has been named Bianca. Hope there won't be any problems getting Bianca through Customs, because she and Annie have really bonded. Farewell Camel! A rivederci Pillow! Bianca, we're headed home!

Five things we hear from one another

What Harold tells Annie:

Can you please sit properly at the table?
Time to get up!
Are you sure there isn't a vegetable you'd like today?
I promise, we'll only go in for 15 minutes.
Please don't clutch Uncle Harold's hand quite so hard!

What Annie tells Harold:

What time is it?
Ow, that hurts! (When brushing hair after shower.)
My gelato level is dangerously, dangerously low.
No more churches please today!
Are we lost? How much further?

And from both:

I love being here with you!

Defeated by the Barbarians

Today's plan was to do St. Mark, Doge's Palace, then lunch, then go see "Rome and the Barbarians" at Palazzo Grassi (and then on to Torcello, depending ... ).

Actually, the exhibition was Annie's idea. We had been passing Palazzo Grassi at least once a day on the Grand Canal, and the huge banner announcing the show had caught her attention. So she made it a "non-negotiable" for today.

Palazzo Grassi is huge and gorgeous. Renovated in 1984 by Fiat for temporary exhibitions. And it's expensive. 21 euros for our entrance, another 10 for two acoustaguides. That's $60 to get in the door.

Annie was right to get us there. An absolutely fascinating look at the Roman world from Julius Caesar to the year 1,000, as the Roman imperium civilized the greater part of Europe, fought the growing barbarian threat, fell in 476, then slowly revived as the pro-modern world of the early middle ages.

Sculpture, jewelry, household items, arms and armour, burial hoards, inscriptions, mosaics, enamels, textiles and manuscripts. You name it, they had it. If this show came to NYC, it would be a blockbuster at the Met. It was worth a whole day, and probably a second visit after reading the catalog.

But Annie and I were EXHAUSTED. We gave it our best, but after an hour we looked at each other, made a quick visit to the gift shop, and talked about how sorry we were that brother Daniel ... and Sam Kahn, and Steven Diamond, and all the other thoughtful boys we knew couldn't be there to see it with us. (Trust me, it had "boys will love this" written all over it.)

So ... off to gelato, then home for well-deserved nap. Methinks this will be our earliest night yet. Don't know that either of us will see the far side of 9 p.m.

And tomorrow is our last day!

Finally: St. Mark's and the Doge's Palace!

For nine days St. Mark's and the Doge's Palace have been on the list for "tomorrow" while "today" wasn't quite right (too late, weather too nice, last day with the Michiganders, etc.) Well, as Annie said this morning, we only have one "tomorrow" left, so today was the day!

In brief? St. Mark's by itself is worth a trip to Venice; the Doge's palace is fascinating, if a bit bare and cold.

Even at 10:15 there was a 30 minute line to get into St. Mark's (Annie didn't wake up until 8:30, despite having gone to bed last night at 9:30, so our resolution to be in San Marco by 9:00 was a non-starter.)

But we found ourselves in line with a nice French family (surprise, surprise); were able to clue them in to the fact they needed to check their backpack before going into the Basilica, and found out that the wife has a sister who lives on East 44th Street and works at the U.N.

After having looked at the outside for a week, I was prepared for a let-down when we entered, but the opposite was true: the hair stood up at the back of my neck. I can't imagine that anything would quite prepare you -- the entire interior of St. Mark's is completely covered with golden mosaics that glint and sparkle in the semi-dark of the year 1100. As Carter said when he say the Tomb of Tutankhamun "Gold, gold, everywhere the glint of gold."

Annie and I wound our way through the church, stopping to ooh and aah, looking up at the domes and transfixed by the several beams of dusty light cutting through the darkness from the windows high above our heads. Annie was particularly interested in the westernmost dome, as it's decorated with the Pentacost, her very favorite Biblical event. Tongues of flame from heaven, licking the heads of the apostles!

Around to the back of the church, pay our money and see the Pala D'oro, the Golden Altarcreen. About 8 feet wide by 6 feet high, this precious relic is made up of over 100 golden enamelled plaques and set with jujube-sized cabochon jewels. Much of it was brought to Venice from Constantinople in 1204 after the Venetians sacked that ancient city, and it's as strange and wonderful to modern eyes as if it had been transported from another world. Then the treasury, which holds, among other things, the largest perfect rock crystal vessel from the ancient world.

Back through the church and up the narrow dark stairs to the loggia, where inside the museum holds the originals of the four Horses of San Marco and dozens of mosaics that had been removed from the church during earlier restorations, then outside where replicas of the horses look over the Piazza and you can look at the entire extend of both Piazza and Piazetta, and down into the Doge's Palace.

Back down and out to the 21st century.

(Annie has kept up a running dialogue about whether Jewish people have churches as well as synagogues, which has kept me busy with explanations about sacraments, worship and the difference between a Christian priest and a Jewish rabbi, and further questions about the difference between Catholicism and Episopalianism. I never thought I'd be using the term "Bishop of Rome" with an eight-year-old).

Around the corner to the Doge's Palace. Both of us dragging so we forego the acoustaguide and do it rough. More walking and glancing at signage than actual study, but the Doge's Palace is was actually a huge stage set for the theatre of Venetian government, so the general impression is the most important thing. Yes, the Chamber of the Great Council is the largest room in Europe, but with several hundred tourists in comfortable shoes and guidebooks, it does bring to mind a particularly oppulent train station waiting room.

Across the Bridge of Sighs (much more interesting from the outside) and through at least 2 dozen prison cells and torture chambers (about 23 more than I needed), then back across BoS and down stairs to our most pleasant surprise: the cafeteria at the Doge's Palace has very good food at very reasonable prices, with a big window just above water level opening onto the canal under the Bridge of Sighs, where a gondola goes by about every 45 seconds just feet from your table!

I wish I hadn't been so tired, and perhaps we should have done it earlier in our trip, but what an unforgettable morning.

P.S. Annie very disappointed that the Staircase of the Giants was closed for restoration. She continues to surprise with what she's picking up as she pages through the guidebook.