The Worst, Best and the Rest of Rome . . .

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Monday, September 10

The Rome whirlwind goes by with glitz and overload, especially when one goes to the Vatican.  I know, it’s something you just have to do when in Rome, but frankly, this is the last time I’ll make a trip to the smallest country in the world.  And referencing the title of this post, I think for me, the Vatican experience is the worst of Rome.

The Basilica is exquisite, overpowering, full of story and art, and though the Vatican Museum is also art-full, somehow my eyes glaze over, especially when I think about the link between political power and the Church’s co-dependent relationship with the richest families in Italian history.  Stolen art from other countries, contests to see who has the most body parts of saints, and overwhelming statuary, tapestries, paintings . . . all of that would be enough, more than enough.

But squeezed into every section of the Vatican Museum are souvenir shops and counters, selling ridiculous amounts of books, plastic artifacts, gold crosses, rosaries.  A veritable Vatican Coney Island.  Heresy, I know, but I think I’ll be hard pressed to visit Rome again.

Rome is hot and sticky, teeming with tourists and Romans alike, wandering the streets as though there are no cars at all . . . and some of that is part of the charm of this dirty old city.

The Rome upside is that it is walkable, moreso than I had remembered, and just going back to the Spanish Steps, soaking my bare feet in that cold fountain pool,

My feet were nearly blue, but it surely did feel wonderful!

inspiring several Italian women to take off their shoes before the politizia could shoo us off . . . now THAT was fun!  The policewoman scowled at me and said, in Italian, that this was not a bath, and if I wanted a bath, I should go back to my hotel.  I told her it was only my feet that were taking the bath, and that I was happy she hadn’t come along until about 30 minutes into the soak!

Our final Roman dinner, at the Fortunato just near the Pantheon, was an opportunity to have the best steak tartare I’ve ever eaten!  Delicious food, yummy wine, all on a Roman terrace, with the dusk settling over the Pantheon over my right shoulder.

10.72 miles logged on the pedometer on Sunday, 7.11 miles on Monday.  I’m training for the Camino de Santiago even when I’m in Italy.

Getting Into The Roman Groove

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Saturday, September 8

Breakfast (Colazione) at Hotel Smeraldo is lovely, with trays of salami, ham, and cheese.  Yogurt, cereal, fruit, rolls, and coffee round out the fare.  After breakfast I meet with my group in the lobby, armed with our Roma passes.   Like a line of ducklings, we wander out, snaking through small piazzas, looking for Bus # 116 which will take us up to the Villa Borghese and the Borghese Gallery.  One of my favorite places in Rome, the Borghese Gallery houses, among other spectacular artwork, mosaics, etc., the statue of Apollo chasing Daphne, by Bernini.  Spectacular . . . and I am awe-struck again.  (Unfortunately, absolutely NO photos allowed, so I revel in the real thing, and buy a postcard . . .  ).

No photo can convey the exquisite beautiy of this piece . . .

A walk through the Villa Borghese grounds to the lookout point above the Piazza del Popolo, then a stroll to the top of the Spanish Steps and down to the fountain, where we can fill our bottles with water from the fish’s mouth.

On Via Condotti, the high end shops do NOT beckon to me, but it’s interesting to see the suited-up concierge outside each entry door.  We ducked down a block or two and had a delicious light lunch.  More walking walking walking and we were at the Pantheon.  The McDonald’s across the Piazza from the beautiful round-domed building is no longer, and a waiter at what is now a lovely restaurant in hat location confided that there was “funny business . . . connected to the mob” which caused the shut-down of the greasy fast food place.  Excellent!  The Pantheon does not deserve to have to look at the golden arches for the rest of its historical life.

Anne and I went in to the Pantheon just as it was closing to tourists, because a Mass was about to begin.  We simply said we were attending the service and the guards let us in, though their looks were dubious.  Do you think I LOOK like a Catholic, rather than a heathen?

The priest appeared to be as old as Abraham, his black four-cornered hat atop his white and balding head, escorted in by a young assistant.  The usher lifted the front hem of the old monsignor’s dress as the Monsignor took one step toward the altar and plopped into his carved chair.

He had his role, but it was only for half of the service, while the lay participants and the younger assistant read the various parts of the mass.  Anne and I sat, amazed by the ancient priest, and we snuck off at the Communion.  More walking before we caught up with Sue, Marie, Laurie and Amy for dinner on the Piazza Navona and back to the hotel.

7.28 miles logged on the pedometer for today.

Roma – Day 1

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Friday, September 7, 2012

Arriviamo a Roma!  At the Fiumicino Aeropuerto, we gathered our Denver/Charlotte group and our luggage before attempting to find Anne (flying from Vermont/NYC), Mary (Des Moines), and our limo/taxi drivers.  After the whirlwind of activity surrounding our Denver to Charlotte flight, our arrival went off without a hitch. The Passport Control agents in Rome seemed to have no interest in even checking our passports, let alone stamping them, much to Amy’s chagrin, since this is her passport’s virgin voyage.

But we loaded the two FacileTaxi cars and were eventually deposited at our hotel, the Hotel Smeraldo.  First order of business . . . catch our breaths, get situated in the rooms, and then gather for lunch and our Hop On, Hop Off bus tour.  I purchased the bus passes from the hotel, before scurrying off to Piazza Navona to secure the Roma Passes at a news kiosk.

Today’s plan would be for all of us to sit on the two-level bus, sit on the upper deck, listen to the mediocre narration and see the city.  While some people could barely keep their eyes open, we all got the trip around, and disembarked at the Colisseum.  Once on our feet again, we realized how exhausted we were, and made our separate decisions about actually going into the giant ruins.  Some of the group got back on the bus, four more stops, and exited the bus closer to our hotel to take naps.  Ann, Sarah and I decided we might as well explore it now, since it was standing right in front of us in all its glory. And the lions ate the Christians . . . "What would Jesus do . . . ?????"

No matter how the afternoon ended for each of us, the evening began with a stroll over the Tiber River to Trastevere and dinner at Taverna Trilussa before returning to our hotel.  Trastevere is a very hopping place, especially on a Friday night, but my very tired ducklings declined the festivities this time . . .

5.47 miles logged today on my pedometer, before a long awaited sleep after our first day in Italy!

Off to Italy!

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Thursday, September 6, 2012

I can’t believe our Italy trip is beginning, but here is the limo driver knocking at my door, and three women are waiting in the stretch white car, as well as the three that are chatting at my kitchen island, all ready to go.  Am I?  I think I have everything, and probably more than everything I need.  The weather generally is mild, and I’ve packed lightweight items for the relative heat of Rome in early September, as well as the long pants and long sleeves I will need after a few days.

Two and a half weeks of soaking up the Italian sunshine, some of the best art in the world, exquisite cuisine, and the company of one another.  Ten of us . . . in Rome, Siena, Florence, Lucca, and Venice . . . and I hope to give you a taste of our adventures right here on this site, day by day, as often as I possibly can.

Ten years ago I took my first group of women to Italy, and I love the country more each time, especially when I can introduce others to some of what draws me to it.  Yes, I know, I’m part Italian, so perhaps that counts for something, but there is an exuberance in Italy that I don’t find anywhere else.  I plan to get my fill of it!

My info packet, the staple of each travel adventure, is full, each page of reservations, phone numbers, and maps tucked into its proper section of the binder:  Trains, Planes and Automobiles; Rome; Siena, Florence, Lucca; Venice; and Miscellaneous.  I announce to the women, “If I get hit by a train or fall over in a dead flop, just know that this clear binder has all the information you need for the trip.  You can step over me and move on to Roma!”

Then my cell phone began to ring with the US Air updates . . . updates telling us our flight from Denver to Charlotte would be an hour late . . . and then two hours late . . . and we only had a one-hour layover in Charlotte for our flight to Rome.  Clearly we wouldn’t make it, and I have two travelers arriving from other places, with no cell phones so no contact.

The very, very short story is that US Air had an earlier flight, for which we had ALMOST enough time to board.  We were booked on the flight, luggage quickly checked, and a U.S. Air ticket agent RAN us to the security line, past the hundreds of waiting passengers, to the front of the security check point, while dumbfounded passengers watched us buzz through ahead of them.  One man looked toward me and asked, “Who ARE all of you?”  It took everything I had to stuff my mouth so I wouldn’t respond flippantly, “The CIA!”

The gate agents were ready to close the doors, had already cleared a stand-by passenger instead of the last of us, and I was afraid Sarah wouldn’t be on the plane.  Certainly I wouldn’t have left without her.  But that US Air ticket agent communicated with the gate agents, and the stand-by person was booted off the plane, making room for Sarah and me.  We got to Charlotte with three hours to spare, and bushels of gratitude for the airline, for a change.  After meeting up with our Charlotte traveler, making introductions all around, trolling the concourse for croissants, coffee, sandwiches and bottled water, we headed for the sign that said:

We head for this door, like iron filings to a magnet . . . now eight travelers, and soon to be ten, as we meet with our Iowa and Vermont friends in the Roma airport.

Market Week in Provence, Part 3

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May 9 and 10, 2012.  Mid-week in Provence found us in St. Remy, and to our surprise, Wednesday was Market Day in this town famous for the fact that it is the home of the mental hospital at which Van Gogh spent about 15 months.  Down the path to the hospital and surrounding it are eighteen plaques, what I call the Van Gogh Stations of the Cross . . . on each plaque is a reproduction of one of his paintings, along with an excerpt from his journals, or a letter to his brother, or some other bit of his writing which helps put each painting in context.

No matter how many times I enter the hospital, I am always struck again by the austerity of the room in which he slept, the simple horror of the tub where he received his shock treatments, and the beauty he created despite his tortured mind.  The hospital is still functioning, and the young patients take great inspiration from Van Gogh’s dedication to his work despite his mental illness.  Many of the patients’ paintings are for sale in the inevitable gift shop.

The presence of the street market made today’s visit to St. Remy even more full of color and the buzz of the local shoppers.  Fresh fish, vegetables, eggs, jams, sausages, olives as well as table linens, purses, dresses, and street musicians filled the streets from downtown to the visitor’s center.

What’s for lunch??

Though we are beginning to recognize some of the vendors, the variety of booths and tables of merchandise never stops surprising me.

Next time I come to this intriguing little city, I won’t even look for a restaurant.  I’ll just graze ecstatically among the market’s offerings!

On our way back to our villa after lunch, we spotted a glowing field of poppies, so we pulled off the side of the road, walked to the field, all of us with cameras in hand, and clicked and clicked until we thought we might have had our fill of the view.  Incredible!

Brilliant poppy field with a backdrop of the Luberon Mountains

Our days are full and lazy in that order.  Plenty of places to see while it’s sunny, and then back to the villa to relax, read, swim, graze at a table full of market fare, and sleep, sweet sleep before we begin again.

Thursday’s market venture found us in Aix-en-Provence, where the market stretched down long avenues and wound through alleyways and plazas.  After a morning of shopping and lunch in front of the merchandise market, we returned to the villa in anticipation of our dinner, prepared for us on site by Chef Ronald, http://www.chefronald.fr, and we were not disappointed.  You can check out his website (click on “English”) and go to the menus for a mouth-watering list of possibilities, with photos.

More on that in the next post!

Market Week in Provence, Part 2

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May 8, 2012.  Today we had breakfast at the villa, since Anne and I finally found the coordinates for an open grocery store last night.  Coffee, tea, toast, fig jam (from yesterday’s market), and my infamous garbage omlettes, mixed with fresh cheeses (also from the market yesterday), onions, fresh red peppers and mushrooms.

By 10:00 a.m. we climbed into the enormous van we rented, and headed north for Gordes, a lovely hill town where the very well-to-do have their summer houses.  Beautiful stone residences climb the hillside, somewhat like a very upscale Mesa Verde.  VERY upscale.  And the village at the top is pristine, with the requisite museum and church, as well as several boulangeries, cafes, and shops.  Not much in the way of tourist junk, thank goodness.

We were routed to a parking lot a few blocks away from the town, because it was VE Day, a national holiday, and there was to be a ceremony in the large square at the top of the hill.  In addition, we stumbled on Gordes’ weekly market, much smaller than the one in L’Isle Sur La Sorgue, and again, definitely the higher end of market fare.

At noon a ceremony was performed in the square, with the French version of our color guard standing tall.  All the bustle of the market stopped, in memory of all who lost their lives in WWII.  After about 15 minutes, everything resumed as before, but I felt honored to be on the sidelines of this solemn moment.

Exquisite lunch in Gordes

Our group ate a delicious lunch on the outside patio of L’Estaminet, took a last look around the market booths and the permanent shops.  I bought a lovely turquoise pashmina from one vendor, a large linen tablecloth and runner from another, and the requisite lavender soap, a must in Provence, where the lavender fields are not yet in flower, but definitely rounding out their greenery already.

By mid-afternoon, we were ready to pile back into the van and head toward Robion and our villa.  We created a delicious and widely-varied dinner out of the things we had bought during the past two days . . . cheeses and sausages from the markets, salad greens and roasted chicken left over from the day before, and wine from the Cave de Luberon.  All in all, a beautiful day!

Market Week in Provence: Part 1

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May 7, 2012. When I created the schedule of activities for most of our week in Provence, I didn’t deliberately choose to visit my favorite towns — Cassis, Gordes, Roussilon, St. Remy, Aix-en-Provence — each on the day of the local market, but four days out of five, that’s what happened.  I must admit that Sunday’s outing (see the previous post) was a deliberate market choice, and our timing was better than in the past.  Earlier in the day, the colorful booths explode out of the pathways around the Sorgue river, full of everything from tableclothes to shawls to baskets to cheeses, olives, roasted chickens, antique threads and tapestries, furniture, and schlock souvenirs (though thankfully there isn’t much of that).

Monday’s journey was to the Cote d’Azur, the French Riviera, specifically the beautiful little town of Cassis.  The U-shaped harbor is lined with cafes and what else . . . shops.  And at the water’s U-shaped edges are rows and rows of sailboats and motorized touring boats, which carry their passengers in and out of the Riviera’s calanques, fjords, the watery fingers of this part of the coast.

Since I have a strong tendency toward motion sickness, and have braved the waters the first time I traveled to this part of the area, I choose to send my traveling ducklings down these beautiful passageways without me.  The turquoise sparkling surface of the water reflected a magnificent sky today, and in my mind, the weather was perfect.

While my travelers cruised the calanques, I scouted out a restaurant where I could sit down and have my favorite boat-waiting meal . . . steak tartare!  Glass of red wine, basket of delicious French bread (there is NO bread like French bread from France, no matter HOW much I love Italy!), and a plate of fresh raw beef, parmesan cheese shavings, arugula in the center.  An on-shore meal to die for . . .

When the cruise boat returned to the dock, everyone was hungry, so of course we scouted restaurants and menus again until we found a place that offered something for everyone in our group.  I was happy with a glass of ice water and lemon, but the women had their fill of delicious soups, salads, and sandwiches after their time on the water.

Getting out of Cassis is always a challenge, and even with a GPS, the first few turns are very tricky  Who knows where we might end up?

After returning the women to our villa to enjoy the late afternoon sun (and a glass of wine, of course!), Anne and I went to the neighboring town, Coustellet, to find a Super U grocery store, to stock our barren refrigerator and cupboards.  Cheese, fruit, bread, coffee, salad greens, roasted chicken, fig jam, a bottle of Port, among our goodies, and accompanied by the wine we purchased at the Caveau de Luberon, a wine-tasting bar and wine store, we were set for at least half the week.

Back at our villa, we arranged our food purchases from the Sunday market and those from today’s grocery outing onto platters and carried everything out to the table in our courtyard, set to relax until bedtime.

Have Resurrected Computer, Will Post!

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May 17, 2012.  Why is it that the best laid plans of mice, men and women, really do come apart at the seams sometimes?  After transferring this blog to WordPress so I’d be really ready to keep track of our travels, I found myself with a completely dead 9-year old laptop last weekend, and nothing I could do would bring it back to life . . . until I completely left it alone for four days, removed and repositioned the battery several times, etc. etc.  For no particular reason, yesterday morning, voila!  I heard that distinctive chime that only means a Mac is booting up . . .

So, though I felt clearly lost without the electronics, I noticed several things:

1)  I reminded myself that despite the rain in France for a month before we arrived, and despite the forecast for several days of rain during our 16 days here, we have had simply beautiful weather, but for Tuesday, when we walked through the Marais District with a walking guide, umbrellas up against rain and gusts of wind . . .

2) I wrote a bit more in my paper journal about our activities, rather than try to deal with the French computer keyboard layout . . .

3)I finally made a firm decision to buy a new Mac as soon as I return home.

The writing and posting could be done at home, worst case, and my photos won’t go on this site, probably because of the ancient and now really dying system I have.  BUT . . . we definitely wouldn’t be enjoying our activities nearly as much if our weather had shown up as predicted.

So . . . there’s my introduction.  Now on to our adventures, which I will post in pieces, so you won’t have to make a sandwich before you settle in to read:

Provence, cont’d:  When last we left this website, Sunday, May 6, we had settled into our first day at our villa in Robion, in the Luberon Valley of Provence.  Indeed, we went to the market at L’Isle Sur La Sorgue, returned to our villa for relaxation near our swimming pool, and returned to L’Isle, etc. for dinner at Le Jardin du Quai.  It’s a beautiful place, and though the main course that particular night was a pork roast, not the best thing I’ve eaten here, the accompaniments were delicious, the garden cast a glowing light on all of us as the sun set late in the evening, and we enjoyed ourselves completely.

The drive back to the villa was under 30 minutes, and we eased ourselves into our respective villa bedrooms for a good night’s sleep.


France Women 2012 Part I – Provence

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May 6, 2012.  We’ve arrived and settled in to the villa St. Roch in Robion, a little village in the Luberon Valley of Provence.  The new village is one block to our right, the old village perhaps a 10 minute walk to the left, and the Luberon Mountains protect our backs and the back of the property.  It is a gorgeous day, we’ve been to the old village for cafe au lait this morning (our villa owner, the darling Sebastian, walked to the boulangerie for our just-out-of-the-oven croissants), and enjoyed the early part of the morning watching the townspeople stream into the Hotel de Ville to vote for the French president.

This afternoon we are heading to L’Isle sur la Sorgue for the Sunday Market.  It’s a beautiful day and we’re getting an earlier start than we usually do on these trips, so perhaps half of the vendors won’t be packing up already!  This evening we will return to the restaurant Le Jardin du Quai, right across from the train station, within a high iron fence.  The beautiful garden areas welcome the restaurant’s customers, and the chef, Daniel, prepares fresh dinners from what he gathers at the markets on Saturday and Sunday.

The women are chattering already, as though they’ve known one another for half a century, and indeed three of them have done just that.  Anne, Penny and Etta met in New York in the 60’s, married men who were all friends, and the rest, as they say, was history.  Kathy and Ingrid are delightful additions as well, so I’m looking forward to an excellent week.

My photos (I know, I say this every time) are giving me trouble, so at the moment I can’t transfer any of them to this post, but I promise I’ll insert them as I can.

On the Way to France!

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The days are passing quickly, and in two days, I fly to Paris to meet my group of women for our France Women 2012 adventure. We will settle in to a beautiful villa, St. Roch, in the Luberon village of Robion for a week, followed by one lovely night’s stay at Les Florets in Gigondas.

Paris awaits us for the second half of this magical trip, and I can’t wait to visit my favorite places once more, while making time to discover new haunts.  And a special treat for this groupie . . . James Taylor in concert, May 15, at L’Olympia Theater!

Follow us as we explore Provence and Paris for the next two weeks.