Dispatch from the Vatican

We walk past the Golden Arches, symbol of the world’s second biggest franchise, to get into the headquarters of THE biggest.  Vatican City, latest seat of the Bishop of Rome, and an independent country since a handshake with Mussolini gave the deed to the Pope.  It is difficult to express my confusion at the immense wealth I see displayed here.  The subconscious's threat of eternal damnation fights to suppress my observant and historical mind.  I cannot easily connect the use of the trappings and pageantry of the Roman Emperors by the followers of a philosophy, which advises giving all you have to the poor.  Each Pope seems to have quarried whole mountains, or just scavenged from the previous pagan or Christian builders, to erect and then decorate a bigger and more grand edifice than his predecessors.  The names of Popes are carved in these marvels of stone, far more often than the name of the man they claim to glorify.  But I guess that explains why graffiti is an Italian word.

Here are faces and tongues from around the world.  The pilgrims and pickpockets, the clergy and clerics, the believers and the bewildered, all mingling as insignificant specks under the vast structures looming overhead.  A large German lady, climbing in front, up the 191 meters of spiral stairs to the top of Michelangelo’s dome of St. Peter’s.  Her spandex cavorting like two mating wolverines in a Hefty trash bag.  Thankfully, on reaching the top, the view changes to the truly heavenly, with the old city of Rome displayed across the Tiber River, all the way out to the Coliseum.  

Behind the huge statues of the saints the pragmatic side of this Papal theme park can be seen.  No pigeon poop is to be found on these holy heads as a system of high-tension wires, snakes up and down each stone shape.  I couldn’t help but wonder what St. Francis would make of his beloved birds being zapped when they attempted a landing on his outstretched hand.

From up here, one can look down into the Papal areas and tourists strain to perhaps catch a glimpse of the pontiff in his skivvies stretching and scratching.   Also from here, without standing in the long line, I get to see one of the most famed works of art in the western world - the Sistine Chapel.  The guidebook says Michelangelo got stuck for over 4 years painting the sucker.  But as I look down on it, I am not impressed.  The texture is monotonous and the colors, while warm and vibrant, are very much monochromatic.  However, if it is really some surface, other than just red tile, he was one hell of a painter.

OK, OK.  Jean has pointed out my mistake, and after pushing our way to the front of the line (when in Rome...) we sit in the painted majesty of the Chapel looking UP at the ceiling.  It is too big and grand to take in as a whole, so it is the small details that are set into memory.  Silence is demanded inside (as the loud speaker repetitively announces) so it is over dinner that we have a chance to compare notes.  Jean wonders why these most powerful male biblical characters were depicted with such insignificant equipment? Could it be that Michalangilo did not want to intimidate the papal prudes that objected to such full frontals, or could it just be that Jean is spoiled?  Sitting here in my insomnia, I am more intrigued by why such a renaissance man as Michalanglo, would paint Adam and Eve with belly buttons?

 - Roddi Renaissance

Dispatch from Roma

Ah ROMA! - it may be the eternal city, but it did not pass on such longevity to my faithful Mac laptop.  After bouncing and banging though dispatch posts far and wide, Ol’Mac decided that the latest taxi, plane, train and metro ride in a backpack was too much to ask.  The screen awoke from its transatlantic sleep to display a rainbow of streaks and stripes.  No amount of re-boots or giggling (and even a whomp) would make Steve Job’s smiling face pop into view.  A tragedy of some importance because not only would you be excused from deleting my dispatch drivels, but the digital photo collection from my first and maybe last trek through Italy would be limited to the amount of memory inside the camera.  And this place is, at the very least, photogenic.

Salvation did not come from the nearby Holy See nor from the flocks of collared clergy flocking to the Vatican in this Jubilee year.  It came from a truly “catholic” (meaning for everyone) tool whose only connection to the Pope is his Swiss Guards in their striped uniforms (designed by Michelangelo during the rein of Extravagance III or Flamboyance IV, I think). 

Anyway, it was only right that the little computer store on the busy Via in front of our rented apartment, was staffed by not a soul that spoke English.  Yet one young man, named Massimiliano, who like me, has never been afraid to ignore the dire warnings displayed on a product’s instructions.  I am sure, as a baby, he crawled across his crib to rip the “Do not remove under penalty of law” tag (or the Italian equivalent) off his first stuffed toy.  His computer tool consisted of just one - the un-curled paper clip. (This tool is as dear to Mac owners as a hammer is to those who own old Fords.)  With it, he knew a secret way to pop out the keyboard while the Mac was still running, an act so forbidden that the latches to remove it normally are reached only by removing the battery effectively killing all power.  With the keyboard off, the screws marked “Do Not Remove” were easily accessed.  Alas he did not have the special screwdriver necessary to delve deeper into the electronic bowels of Ol’Mac.  (This is were the Swiss Guard connection comes in.)  Out of my backpack came my Swiss Army knife with plenty of pointy things to try into the screw slots.  The second one did the trick and he popped off the cover. Some simple pushing and prodding of this thingy and that thingy did the trick.  Ol’Mac smiled up at us and was joined by smiles all around. 

My new smile will be maintained, and this dispatch sent, only if my attempts at installing the Italian Internet software and connecting to the Italian phones prove to be successful.  If not, watch for black smoke over the Vatican.

 - Santo Rodericicco

Dispatch from Roma II

Like other well-known tourists that attempted to “do” Rome, such as Hannibal and Attila, we never even made a dent in the glories of the Eternal City.  Hot and sticky and packed like every large city with an overload of manic driven people and their machines. A few days were all that we could stand.  The opening salvo of humanity’s crush was the master pickpocket that did a classic touch-and-go of my pockets and backpack, as I stood immobilized in our first Roman subway ride.  His false right arm was wrapped around a package and my jet-lag addled brain was not up to realizing that a man can have 3 arms.  He got the cash in the front right pocket while leaving my glasses in place, unbuttoned my back pocket, unzipped the small pockets of my backpack (while I was wearing it on my front!), and finally woke me up by trying the other front pocket.  All this, while I kept two of his hands in plane view.  With the timing of the seasoned pro that he was, the deed was done just as the carriage doors began to close.  He stepped through and was gone.  Had I not been loaded down with bags under my arms and eyes, and had I been able to catch up with him, I am not sure whether I would have wrung his neck in anger, or wrung his hand in admiration.  Meistro too, is an Italian word.

Our last night in Rome was spent on a lovely evening stroll through the sights, sounds, and smells of the old town and the several pedestrian plazas, complete with fountains and street artists.  Past the fashion center, mecca to the clothes hounds around the world.  The names were all there, Verscai, Armani, Gucci, Ferrigamo, etc etc.  My favorite was an honest and aptly named boutique, eXpensive!  To Jean’s dismay, it was closed.

On to the Spanish Steps, where so many well-endowed movie starlets have been filmed bouncing down, followed by a Carry Grant or a Gregory Peck.  The steps looked less fashionable in real life with 200 backpacking teenagers with assorted bottles of booze lounging and looking.  Like the 60’s (if you can remember) without the guitars, tie-die and sideburns.


Would I go back to see more of Rome?  I am not one for superstitions, but it is said if you toss a coin over your shoulder into the famous Trevi Fountain, you will be guaranteed a return to this place.  I thought about it, watched about a hundred tourists toss coins, and ...

...  I waded out and was able toss about 400 Lire out of the fountain before the Carabinieri officer pulled me out of the water.  I look forward to the countryside and escape.

- Roderico Rejecti

Dispatch from a Bike

Ah Umbria - Now this is how I hoped Italy could be, and probably how human existence should be.  Cultured little towns with cultivated country all around.  We joined 18 others, from England, Brazil, the USA and Canada for a 7 day bike tour of this landlocked “green heart” of Italy.  Peddling through the countryside from one hilltop village to another.  4 star hotels, huge feasts afield at lunch, and 4 course sit downs at night; and still time to walk the medieval streets and gaze up in the art-laden churches.


They said this is the hill country, but viewing from a bicycle seat, hill must be an Italian word for mountain. Nevertheless, even 4-5 hours on a bike each day could not counter the 2-4 hours of eating.  As the money belt thins, the underlying flesh expands to fill the void.  There apparently is no such thing as a bad meal in Italy, and I fear for my wardrobe when the coming cooking schools continues my changes in body shape.  Sleep comes easy and dispatches suffer.

A day at Assisi on the anniversaries of both the death of St. Francis, and of the big quake of ’97, that took down much of the town and the dome of the fabulous church.  An aftershock killed 4 workers trying to save the damaged dome.  Lots of the faithful in town.  Unlike his boss in Rome, Francis actually gave his wealth to the poor and tried to emulate the life of Jesus. He asked his followers, which became the Franciscans, to do the same.  Some did (and do), some didn’t.  How could the huge church and vast art at this headquarters of the order, jive with their vow of poverty?  Seems Gregory XI wanted it done, so called in his papal lawyer, ClaususLoopholus.  He wrote the deed in the Pope’s name, not the Franciscans.  Problem solved.  Had the early church tended toward the ideals of Francis, the world would have been a much different place.  I got big goose bumps standing in front of this Saint’s tomb.

On to the other hill towns like Todi, Orvieto, Spello, and, yesterday, Civita - with its population of nine.  All are medieval or even older walled forts and are barely ascendable even today. This must have been a very nasty neighborhood back then, as the flat valleys and wooded slopes were passed up as building sites - not as defensible as the rocky crags.  Thankfully a combination of romantic idealism and functionally (not to mention the cost) have kept much of the past from being torn down.  The buildings are all cut stone and still serve nicely the exact purpose they were designed for a thousand years ago.  The churches, shops and houses built then are still in use.  Only the phone wires and water pipes prevent a Dante or Donatello from stepping out of a narrow slit of a street, to an animated “Buongiorno!”  Practice of the language requires both hands and a strong wrist.  People more than friendly and the pace of life just right.

Our last peddle-in hotel is the oldest in all of Italy.  Once a retreat for early Cardinals, its combination of ruins and luxury are in perfect contrast.  The high tower, long closed to humans, is a rookery of rooks - their wheeling and calling the timeless soundscape for the sunrise and sunset.



Today the packaged bike trip is over and we return to backpacker's mode and move into a tiny room on a tiny plaza in a tiny town, and continue to live large, in more ways than one.

 - Rodious Rotundus

Dispatch from Tuscany

Now, for more tourist meccas, we leave the countryside of Umbria to train north into the current hip spot for the American go-there do-that set - Tuscany.  Ever since Jean read Under the Tuscan Sun, I have been bombarded with her deep sighs about restoring some crumbling 13th century Tuscan villa and making olive oil from our very own trees.  I must keep reminding her that she is Jean Stewart- not Martha, and while I can repair wiring and plumbing, I don’t want to have re-invent ‘em. 

In Tuscany the food is different enough for even me to notice.  Eating and food are an important part of life in Italy, and we are getting into their way of eating and drinking.  For instance, waiters here are members of a respected profession, not struggling students, screenwriters, or OJ’s houseboy.  No salt and pepper on the tables, as one would not dream of altering the chefs presentation.  Asking what spice a dish contained, one night was misinterpreted as it needing more spice.  The waiter slammed down a dish of cayenne pepper on the table and stomped off.  When the mistake was explained, the mood of the help changed back into one of service and respect and Jean ended up in the kitchen with the chef. Thank goodness he didn’t hear that we thought his creations needed changing, or a meat cleaver might have been our second course.

A long weekend in Siena, a medieval city made rich on pilgrims going between Rome and Florence.  These guys got so rich, they started building a church to rival Rome’s, but the Black Death intervened, dropping two thirds of the population, leaving church unfinished and the various competitive family towers still the tallest buildings in town.  Siena started with 9 family groups in the 12th century, vying for prestige and power - that has grown into 14 today.  Each with its own neighborhood, animal icon, church, flag, special street lights and various other self-proclaimed embellishments - just like any clan, tong, gang, or fraternity.

Siena is where they run the famous horse race called the Palio - bareback riders roar around the plaza for a prize of a yellow streamer and big big bragging rights.  The race was over months ago, but the day we arrived, we found small boys from the winning family drumming and twirling banners in the streets.  Young men, in costumes to rival Halloween in the Castro, chanting and singing thir neighborhood anthems while snaking through the narrow street’s canyons.  This went on until fireworks at 1AM, making me think that somehow the news it was my birthday had leaked out.  No, it was just another bunch of human males, taunting their rivals and boasting of marvelous unnecessary deeds done in their name by others – a fairly universal and timeless human activity.

Today, we are in San Gimignano, where this competitive-family-tower construction thing, reached its zenith.  Seventy-three of these ego trips were built here during the 12th and 13th centuries, and enough remain to give this little village the title of “The Manhattan of Italy”.  The egoist builders surly padded their codpieces.  (Look it up)  I wonder what Freud would have said about these guys.

We find a small hotel outside the walls and are lead up to our room by one of those incredible women that only the Italian gene pool can produce.  I, being always the gentleman, let her lead up the stairs and her jeans were slow dancing a pas d’ deux from Swan Lake.  My Jean follows and gives me a swat.   She knows me too well.  We will hold up in our room until the tour busses take the hoards of German day-trippers back to Florence, and then hit the cobblestones.  Our afternoon picnic of cheese, wine, truffle spreads and fruit, next to the roofless ruins of a stone farmhouse, will keep us going until the fashionable Italian dinner hour of 9.



Jean got a good look inside that Tuscan villa, so I don’t think the local real estate agents can expect a call.

- Rodichello Realiti

Dispatch from Via Chianti

With fall coming early, our plans to visit sunny Capri or bask with Napoleon on Elba were washed out with the arriving rain showers.  “But the hills of Chianti”, to quote Jean’s friend, “are just ta die for!”  So to test that literal truth, we went to a local agency ... and rented a car!

Have you ever fantasized about the autumn trees blurring past the open window?  Your right hand, draped in a kidskin driving glove, is gripping the 5 speed close-ratio shifter.  Your left hand is linked to the crisp rack-and-pinion steering of a fine Italian road machine.  Low profile radial rubber on a well engineered, perfectly maintained, but winding and narrow mountain road.  Such Italian roads are the reason for the Mazerati, the Ferrari, and bright red Alpha Romero Spider convertibles!  Unfortunately, we only got the off-white Fiat Punto (Pinto?) hatchback.  But as we corkscrewed up and down the mountains and drifted into the turns, I was living the dream - and I think even Jean was visualizing it - as she often had her eyes shut tight and was making what I think, sounded like little moans of delight.

Despite the reputation of Italian drivers, I loved our first adventures at the wheel.  Darwin has apparently culled the herd, and those that survived are great drivers.  Drink espresso, drive as fast as you dare, and let everyone else know exactly what you are trying to do - and then do it with gusto.  In other words, they all drive like me!  No honking or vivid hand gestures out the window, too busy shifting and passing.  Ah passing! My memory of Italian roads will always be expressed by the vision of a yellow school bus, blowing by us on an outside curve, while I’m up shifting into fifth gear.  I watch the blase expression of the school children, Italy’s future drivers, looking out the back window as they are compressed to one side and then the other.  The bus roars out of sight, sliding around the next hairpin curve.  Jean re-closes her eyes.

But we reach the heart of Il Chianti alive, find a room to rent in one of their 800 wineries, hang out two buckets of laundry to dry as it starts to rain, and raid the wine cellar just across from our door.  Chianti Classico is the wine of fame here, and the view from our room even meets Jean’s expectations, with the just opened ‘96’s label showing the very vines seen outside our window.  Tonight we drive to the top of the hill town of Radda, for Bar Dante’s famous bruschetta, and to see if vino rosso works as well as espresso in bringing the Grand Prix of Chianti to life ... and maybe to look in the shops for driving gloves!

Viva Italia, viva vino, viva retirement!

- Rodolifo Rapido

Dispatch from Amalfi

National Geographic’s Traveler, in its Millennium edition, listed the best places in the world to go and see.  I remember one of the top 10 as the Amalfi Coast - a short stretch of south facing cliffs and villages between Pompei’s volcano, and Salerno’s WWII invasion beach.  Jean’s choice for a cooking school, our main genesis for an Italian holiday, not only turned out to be in this very village of Amalfi, but in a hotel that has been part of the scene here since the early 11th century.  After my moving experience in Assisi, it is ironic that we sleep in this ex-convent (yet with monks, not nuns) that was founded by Francis himself, in 1222.  The Saint might have even stayed in our room and enjoyed our expansive deck and big bathtub overlooking the tiny harbor, (but he probably did without the bubble-bath and mini-bar).

The Barbaro family opened the building to paying travelers in 1822 after the Pope surrendered Amalfi to the Kingdom of Naples.  Many generations later, an 80+ year old Signorina Barbaro, sits downstairs watching over her staff.  These few dozen guestrooms have been visited by the who’s-who crowd; from Bismarck to Mussolini to Tennessee Williams.  Both Ibsen and Wagner claimed the hotel as muse for one of their works.  Just today, an author writing a book on art history, was photographing the old oils gracing the hotel’s public areas.

Even the hotel staff fits the mold, while not being at all moldy.  At breakfast, our waiter is the aging Luigi, a Neapolitan cross between Charlie Chapman and the Munster's Lurch.  He serves us our daily cappuccini repleasent in white coat and wing collar.  I sip with my pinky out, but feel like a Saracen in a Cathedral.

The cooking school classroom is in “The Tower”, an even older part of the hotel, that was built on a rocky point to prevent the real Saracens from landing and doing what Saracens do.  When Jean and I landed, we found the cooking school was all our torsos feared - no one travels to Italy to learn to cook lite salads and diet dip. The head chef is Pinocchio’s father come to life.  His name is Enrico and he speaks no English.  His every energetic word is quickly translated into the Queen’s English when he calls out  to "Rosemarie!"  She is a taciturn and proper lady who left London on holiday 35 years ago, took one look at the magic Amalfi coast, (and an Italian stallion named Pepe) and has lived here ever since.  The combination of Enrico’s “Gepetto on amphetamines”, and her “Nelson pacing the quarterdeck”, is a comedy act fit for prime time.

Andre, the chef’s/sorcerer's apprentice, does Mickey’s job of cleaning, stirring and carrying, while passing spoons and wisks like a surgical nurse.  Add in the talented hands of the 14 lady students, (and subtract the efforts of this one male interloper) and the speed at which the food is produced, in restaurant sized proportions, is astounding.  Siestas become a necessity of survival after eating the morning classwork - all washed down with Pepe’s (now Rosemarie’s husband) fine local wine.

Amalfi town reminds us of Catalina Island’s Avalon, steeply clinging to a small inlet full of small boats.  It is the oldest of the maritime republic states and did some very early voyaging to open up trade with the orient.  As a result, they claim the invention of the compass, rudder, nautical rules-of-the-road, and the Knights of Malta; as well as the introduction of coffee, carpets and paper into Europe.  Some paper is still made here with the waterfall-powered tools from the 13th century.  

Thankfully, our pending return to backpacker status will prevent any heavy souvenirs from the area’s famous ceramics shops.  Instead, Jean has found a scarf, with a long Italian name, that will grace her ensemble when we have our final and formal school dinner tomorrow.  I will change my wardrobe with an obligatory new hole in my belt.

- Rodufio Ravioli

Quiz:  Why does the backpacker prefer European style hotels?

Dispatch from a Train

Our saga through Italy continues by saying goodbye to a week of cooking school in Amalfi.  The graduation dinner was a real spectacular.  Enrico, the head chef, surpassed all former menus, and then entered triumphant from the kitchen in full uniform - starched whites and sashes and ribbons won in his numerous cooking battles since apprenticed into the trade at 14.  Surprisingly, all of the lady students graduated. One by one, they received their sheepskins while I, the lone male, watched.

I was summonsed up last, and honored as the class Magnum Cum Lardo, (Latin for “He who ate most”) kneeling to receive my chapeau of office and the ceremonial apron.  All the ladies were duly deferential and quickly started asking me to pour their wine and take away the dirty plates.
 The weather has turning purr-fect and, so with a day to burn, we opted for a boat ride to the legendary island of Capri.  Several ferries make the trip even from the little towns on the Amalfi coast, and some serious big ones from Napoli, including a hydrofoil that flies on water at speeds breathtaking to an old rag sailor.

Capri was also the isle of choice for Caesars on vacation, and the ruins of the villa built by Augustus and Tiberius was worth the whole trip.  Nero may have fiddled around here too, while across the bay, Pompeii buried. Up the steep paving, put down over 2000 years ago, we follow a local man whose 18 month old puppy, Hercules, is the biggest Great Dane I have ever seen!  The dog bounds around the halls trod by the past masters of the known world. He is not impressed.  He feels the need to supplant his powerful predecessors by raising a long leg against an ancient marble column.

As we continue to the Imperial residence, we find the central living area of this historic Roman villa, coated over with concrete and a boxy 1700’s church.  Even this blight was later surpassed, in 1976, with a 40’ tall bronze statue of madonna and child.  Someone has continued the process by magic-marking in blue, “Matt 2000”  on the base of the statue.  Seems dogs are not the only animals that feel a need to piss on those that came before.

Old, powerful, holy, priceless or just big and vertical - Popes, boys or dogs - all must make their mark.  But none of these marks could stain the vast vista of the Bay of Naples, stretching out for us blue to the horizon, just as it did for the Emperors ... and even Matt.

Next day now and we sit on the Eurostar train from Napoli to Florence, a distance the length of California.  This ain’t clickitty-clack and the boys hangin out of the boxcar door.  This is modern, clean, quiet electric bullet train - and I am feeling like a poor yokel from the third world.  The USA has nothing that can compete.  We stroll up a wide isle, just seconds before a guaranteed, on-time departure. Place all our bags near plush seats by a picture window.  Smoking or non, bikes, dog and cats cages are all aboard.  Jean sits facing me reading the Herald and sipping red wine.  She has been up looking for cooking classmates and to the bar car for a snack.  People chat over a sit-down lunch in the diner, with linen and stemware.  Ol’Mac is firm on the large table between us, and I listen to one of several music channels as my fingers ramble on.  Soccer on the TV in the club car.

Baggage, phones and fax all can be accessed during the entire trip, as landing and navigational interference, along with weather delays, and seat belts, are not a factor.  A relaxed 700 seats, flying past the farms and fields of Southern Italy.  It could just as well be Germany, France, Japan, and the other countries that can plan ahead enough to see that growing population and shrinking fuel supply, not to mention airspace, will not allow every trip to be made by airplane.  San Francisco airport alone is looking to spend another $2-4 Billion to expand while most of its domestic flights are taken up by those just bound for other points in California.  All over our country, the aviation industry exercises its monopoly, taxpayer-supplied infrastructure and leverage with Congress, to build more and more runways.  We tried the same with freeways but rush hour didn’t go away.  What about some fast trains like this one?  Election time - where are our Augustus and Tiberius?  We seem to be blessed with too many Neros!  Maybe I should shut up and run for office?  Is Dictator-for-Life taken?

- Rodius Publi-cuss Maximus

Dispatch from Florence

Italy has led design since the Greeks dropped out, and Florence has long been the center of the Italian effort.  Here in Florence, cars, clothes, and cuisine stand out today, as they have since the light of the Renaissance peeked out from behind the dreary Dark Ages.  Cute and practical little cars like the “Smart” are all over the place, 2 to a parking spot.  Mini-bikes, electric taxis, busses and trikes make this pre-car city big enough for motor vehicles.   Can we learn from them again?

It was the Florentines that put pepper and potato on the menu, which lead ultimately to salami, prosciutto and pizza pie - things that Jean ponders in her second cooking class of the trip.  Meanwhile, I take in the bravado of a city that has buried and built monuments to, not only the usual popes and potentates, but also to the native sons (and a daughter or two) that opened the dim eyes of humanity. An effort, which hopefully is yet to reach its ultimate end. The history makers like Leonardo, Michelangelo, Dante, Donatello, and my favorite, Galileo - are laid in the company of new guys like Marconi and Fermi.  There are some blank spots left for those still out there continuing the Florentine quest.

Here the relics of science stand next to the saints and are even more venerated.  Yesterday, in a museum first opened when America was just an Italian named Vespucchi, I looked though Galileo’s telescope.  In the case next to it, I set eyes on the very lens that he used to put the sun in the middle of our solar system, (and his butt in hot water with the Pope).  Under threat of excommunication (which might not have cut off his route to heaven, but definitely would have cut off his funding) he backed down and dabbled in other things like the pendulum, magnetism and microscopes.  A few Popes later, he was cleared of all charges, and his body was moved into a fancy crypt in the St. Croce Church, to join so many other famous Florentines.  This was in 1737, when small pieces of saints, crosses, and other holy relics, were a hot commodity (your church just wasn’t going to draw paying pilgrims without a relic).  So they cut the middle finger off Galileo’s skeleton and mounted it in a silver and gold case.  This relic stands stiffly (no photos please) in the museum. I like to think he is flipping off towards Rome.  He who laughs last ...

Italian design is still not only leading fashion, I believe it is also affecting the evolution of a subject of interest to all painters and sculptors - human anatomy.  I did a close survey of the feet of the many goddesses, virgins, nymphs, Madonnas, muses etc., represented in hundreds of paintings and sculptures, from ancient through Renaissance.  None I could find showed any signs of bunions, trigger toes, corns, or heel spurs - or any other of the common ills found on modern female feet.  Passing the windows of the fashion boutiques, it occurred that female feet might be evolving toward a new form.  Once again, Italian design is leading the way and the world follows.  Who knows what the toe-bone relic in a future shoe museum will look like?

- Bruno Mangle

Dispatch from the Grand Canal

All this rain makes Venice the land where water both rises and falls.  The seas get deeper and stones, on ancient landfill, slowly sink.  Yet Venice still is so special.  Everything here revolves around boats.  Everyday plans, even dinner reservations, need a tide schedule to insure dry feet getting to and from the dock.  The bells signal a warning and portable raised boardwalks assist the nautically challenged during the highest of tides.  There is also the factor of 20 odd centuries of ooze coating the ill-circulated canals.  A dinner table by the water might look good at high tide, but at low, you would be willing to pay a little extra to sit away from the odoriferous canal.  Nevertheless, a singularly unique city and way of life.

Venice reminds me of some famous old movie siren.  A beauty remembered from the past, one that always remains in the mind's eye as the face and body pinned up inside a gym locker.  Beauty, with the riches and rumors to fill out the image, and the imagination filling in what details the airbrush had left fuzzy.  Meeting her in later flesh, you can still see what magic there was, but the ravages of time and a poor building site, have left the old girl, while still awesome, just a little pitiful.

Gone are much of the riches that turned a third century swamp into a gold-gilded maze of palaces and blue waterways.  Gone too are many of the residents, leaving the aged stone to be patched by fewer neighbors, and despair from the taxpayers who pay to repair the rest.  As I too live on an island made of landfill, it is best to remember that it is still Mother Nature who decides what man can build, where, and how long it will remain.  Be it quick like Pompeii, or a slow, drawn-out affair like fair Venice - the end is inevitable just a matter of time.    (Note for return: renew flood insurance.)

What remains today, is what Venice started with; a too rare and glorious ... silence.  Only a few paces off the diesel powered bustle of the Grand Canal, the drops of light rain and the creaks of a gondolier's oar seem to be at the top of the noise level.  No smoky Vespas zoom between the buildings and no horns echo up stone walls to wake a sleepy tourist.  When the last bell tower finally sinks into the mud of the lagoon, it will still be as the Venetians found it so long ago  -  quiet.

Rain yesterday too, and Jean and I think about heading to warmer climes.  But worldwide weather is fickle with Nino or Nina everywhere and clothes are running low.  Laundry won't dry in this humidity, and in spite of the European facilities* (who won the quiz?), we need to think of others who may have to share our transport.  My faithful walking shoes are self-destructing, Jean just can't find the perfect black leather Italian purse, and Stanford has started to dribble.  So, it is with full tummies and empty money belts that we wait for a boat to the airport and home.

These old money belts were new when we started our lives traveling together, and they tell the tale of our two natures.  I first adjusted mine to fit, and then cut off the excess length with no thought that I was ever going to have a middle-aged middle.  Jean, always one to hedge her bets, has kept the extra 10 inches of strap, duly tucking it in every time she puts on the old garment, and has yet needed to adjust the strap.  On the other hand, as a Scotsman's purse, mine is seldom opened and is in as-new condition.  Jean’s is worn out.

- Rodericcio Returnedo

Post Script
Like every new travel destination, the Italy of my expectations was more and different than what I found.  Writing these dispatches has made me ponder things I would have missed were I younger or needed more sleep - or had fewer friends.  Thanks to those of you for reading and especially the replies.  Worst thing about travel, by far, is missing family and friends.  Email now eases that problem.  To those who, by now, delete or block all emails from RodOnIsle, I am glad to know you have a real life.  (But you didn't read down this far anyway so screw you!)



And the answer to the quiz:
Why do backpackers prefer European style hotels?





Laundry facilities!

Special Kitto Dispatch

Last night in Rome and one of the MUST see items was the famous Pantheon, a temple built by Agrippa in honor of all the gods.  He was the son-in-law of Octavian, which gave him the where-with-all to build such a fabulous building.  It is still considered the finest remaining from the Roman Empire, in all the world.

Octavian is better known to us as Augustus, from his title that means "Your Eminence".  Augustus never became a king or even called himself emperor, always claiming to be just a "princeps" (leading man), but under his leadership much of Roman art and especially literature flourished.  Virgil, Horace and Ovid wrote for him.  And the historian Livy, who gave us our best insight to life and times in the Roman world, claimed Augustus as patron. Augustus left the Empire in such great shape, that his successor, Tiberius was able to rule the whole thing from his villa in Capri.  Nice work if you can get it.

As history tends to repeat, I bring up other points: Agrippa, as you may remember, was a military type, kicking asp on Marcus Anthony and his Egyptian girl friend Cleo.  Augustus had a wife, Lidia, who was a power in her own right, and established many of the Western world's social norms, many that carry on to this day.

Unlike Agrippa, I will never fight Cleopatra or build a temple, but I do enjoy writing for you two.  And I thank "Your Eminencies" for being one of my patrons, giving me Jean as my muse, being family type which helps provide the incentive and ability for she and me to enjoy a life like no one else I know.  Wish you were here.

- Roddyus Maximus

PS - Continuing the Kitto/Augustus family parallels may not be a good idea.  So I won't bring up that Charlie II would fit into this as Caligula, the mad Emperor that had to be popped off by his own guards when he became too bizarre.  He was followed by Nero (Charlie III?), who was run out of town by the Senate for having his mother assassinated and similar behavior.  And Bill, of course, would have to be sold into slavery.