Italy... Yet again

I left Italy 2 days ago. I miss being there. The photo here is of Sorrento, which is down the coast near Naples. It is a beautiful place, and, if ever I have a few spare hundred thousand dollars kicking around I will take a longer vacation there than the 2 hours we spent there. We were only there for a quick visit, but damn that is a nice coast. This year was a return visit, and we visited more cities, but it felt like a slower pace . Whereas last year we were frantic to see all the great monuments, this year we were happy to soak in the city.

We landed in Rome late in the morning our first day after a Great flight with Air Canada. After some directionless wandering, and aquiring Heather her first shot of Gelato, we took in the National Roman Museum of Archaeology located in the Diocletian Baths, which last year had been closed. It’s a great museum, even when you have just gotten off a plane! Last year we had really wanted to visit, but, it was closed and throughout the year it was referred to as one of the “too bad we missed its” of 2006’s trip. We then headed to one of our favourite restaurants from last year, “Babbo’s” to enjoy a plate of Lasagne. I think for both of us that little bit of familiarity really hit it home that we had arrived back. From there we wandered a bit and then collapsed into bed to try and adjust to Roman time.

The next day we were off to Venice. I was excited; as we had missed Venice last year as our plane had a one-hour stopover there, but we had gone on to Rome. Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed. Venice is a beautiful city, but it seems more like a theme park than a living place. It was actually a bit boring being surrounded by mostly tourists. There are only 30,000 inhabitants of Venice proper. It’s an infuriatingly crowded city. With poor transportation where huge crowds and lines that seem go nowhere, it is a difficult city to navigate. Not to mention that all the food we had in Venice was VERY bland. It was a poorly done approximation of Italian food. A young girl we met on the train told us that Venice was infamous in all of Italy fot its poor food, as they know that everyone is a tourist, and there are no locals to make the more traditional fare. As they know that there are thousands of tourists needing to eat, anyone can open a restaurant and poor word of mouth won’t really hurt them, so they just serve whatever. We had a chicken meal that came with frozen French fries one night there! Its as though they were trying to cater to the American tourists, and not concerning themselves at all with the quality of the food. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the country. In Rome for instance, they sell a sandwich called “Tremenzzine” in most of the Bars for 2 euros ($3). When you order one, they wrap it with care and worry about how the paper sits on it, and it is obvious that it is made with fresh ingredients. This is a standard for Italy… they take pride in their food, and whether its and expensive steak, or just a light snack, it is made with pride. This was missing in Venice. Much more pleasant was the side trip to Murano. It’s a bit quieter, and has a bit more flavour, owing to the glass industry. Murano is much more what I expected that Venice would be like. I am glad to have seen Venice, but also glad that we spent only one full day there.

Naples was our next destination. I was worried about this leg of the trip. Venice had been somewhat of a disappointment. Naples, was on our list mainly due to proximity to Pompeii, and much of what I read had not been entirely positive. Frommers talked at length of the crime and confusion of the city, while making the Cab drivers sound like the scourge of civilization. Thankfully, Napoli turned out to be a most welcome surprise. Not only was the scenery great in the city, there were many other great places to see down the coast, and the food was incredible. Here was the real Italian cuisine. Pizza was born in Naples, and by far this was the best we have ever had. Heather is looking for recipes to recreate the typical Neapolitan Pizza dough. The people were also interesting in Naples. Wait staff at restaurants were helpful, pleasant and fun, like the old man we met at the “Amore & Fantasia Bisteccheria”. Finally seeing Pompeii was intended to be a highlight of the trip and it was. But, once again Italy surprised us with Herculaneum. Pompeii’s smaller brother of a buried city, Herculaneum is better preserved and offers more of a glimpse into daily life in the Roman Empire. Whereas Pompeii impresses with the scale of the ruins, Herculaneum impresses with its intimacy. I wish that we had seen Herculaneum after Pompeii, rather than before, as Pompeii’s relative bleakness and desolation seemed to be overshadowed by Herculaneum’s beautifully preserved frescoe’s and mosaic floors. Naples is perhaps the most “Italian” of all places I have been in Italy. It is a wonderful place, busy and chaotic, but, at the same time ultimately exciting and real. It has many faults such as crazy traffic, congestion, and some very seedy areas, most notably around the train station. In the end, it is these faults that make it real and exciting. The view of the Gulf of Naples, with Mt. Vesuvius looming is one that I will always remember.

From Naples we took the train into Calabria to see my family. It was a great time with much food, happiness, alcohol and some sad times. All in all it was good to see the Family again. I choose to stay short times in the south so that I don’t impose on the family. They have so many visitors coming through that I don’t want to be a burden to them. But, I do cherish the time that I spend with them. Getting to know my cousins a bit better in the past years has been terrific, and its amazing that it feels like I have known them all of my life, having really only spent 4 days with them in the past year. Its an amazing feeling to find family and get to know them. No matter what that closeness of genetic material makes itself felt. No where in Italy was the slower pace of this year's trip more welcome than here. Last year my Father had called my family and gave them a laundry list of things he wanted me to see in his homeland. It was fun, but he managed to get all my relatived worked up into a fever of touring, and we left exhausted. This year, Heather and I were even afforded the luxury of having the time to do some things that we wanted... like taking a walk when WE felt like it. Imagine that :)

From there it was on to Rome for 2 days. This year our intention in journeying to Rome was to enjoy the city, rather than see the sights. Rome cannot be done in one visit. My cousin Armando also met up with us in Rome and took us around in the evenings. New for us this year were Campo dei Fiori and its morning food market where we purchased fresh fruit in the morning, the night time tour of government offices, by my cousin, and the District of Trastevere. Trastevere is the kind of “artsy” district of Rome. I would like to spend more time there in the future. In the Piazza’s of Trastevere are all sorts of vendors and street performers and it is frequented more by locals than tourists. It is very cool, and kind of the larger, not quite as commercial, analog of Toronto’s Queen Street and Kesington districts. My cousin also introduced me to the joy that is “St. Eustachio”. This Café, located in the tiny Piazza St. Eustachio makes the finest coffee that I have ever tried. They hide their machines to keep their methods secret, so even though I purchased their coffee grounds, it is nowhere near as good to the brew they make. St. Eustachio became the ritual start to our mornings, with even the wife trying and enjoying it, though she does not normally drink coffee. Its location near Piazza Navona, allowed us to wake me up with their coffee, then go to Campo Dei Fiori to by fruit snacks for the rest of the day and then walk the streets from there. I enjoyed the 2-day ritual we developed there, and spending most of our time just walking the streets and shopping was awesome. I feel as though I have a bit of a better feeling of what the city is like, after piquing my curiosity last year.

All in all, this trip exceeded my expectations, just as last years had. I was concerned that trying to recapture the previous year’s vacation was going to be a mistake. In fact, I was very concerned when Venice did not live up to the hype as I had expected. As always, Italy held many surprises for me. Unexpected pleasures abounded, and I never felt that we were just re-treading the path from last years trip. Its great to travel with someone like Heather who takes an open minded approach to everywhere we visit, and is happy to let the trip go in unexpected ways. As always it is good to be home, but I will treasure the time we spent in Italy and look forward to another return voyage…