Roman Finale - For Real This Time

Departing the Roman Forum on aching feet, we walked out the back exit and up a long flight of stairs. Behind the Roman Forum is a museum and large piazza. One of the interesting things about the Coliseum and Roman Forum is that they sit smack in the middle of a living city, busy streets filled with cars and all. Rounding a corner a few blocks away, we could see a church with it's side cut away to reveal the ancient columns beneath the modern plaster. A city built atop a city, and on and on it goes. We'd decided to walk across the Tiber River to the area of Trastevere. I'd heard that this was the place to feel a little more of a local scene, and it's a bit quieter and out of the traffic congestion than much of Rome. On our route there, we happened upon what looked like a miniature version of the Coliseum. Turns out, it's the Teatro di Marcello, once an open air theatre and now, apartments.  Fancy living in one of those! We took a path that circled the base of the theater, and came upon a crush of tumbled down ruins with this fun little column base among them:

How cute is this little guy!

The theater and ruins are explained in this very helpful sign: "Antique Monument and Archaeological Ruins"

Trastevere was indeed a peaceful area. Unfortunately, by the time we made it there, we all had aching feet. While we tried to enjoy the area, we really just wanted to head to dinner and get off our soles. We'd picked Dar Poeta Pizzeria since Nathan had eaten there and loved it, two guidebooks recommended it, and one podcast I listened to a few weeks ago listed it as the host's favorite pizzeria in Italy. We were lucky to get a table - actually, not lucky, just American. Sure enough, our 6pm arrival netted us a prime table, and when we left around 8pm, about 20 people milled around outside waiting. The pizza was good, I admit, BUT...we live in Naples. I'm currently holding fast to our hometown La Sorbilla as the best pizza in Italy...clearly, this cannot go unchallenged, so we'll be sure to test plenty of pizza in our time here.

Our walk home included a swing by the Pantheon, beautiful at night, and the Trevi Fountain, so we could all throw our coins in again - absolutely necessary to ensure my aunt and uncle's return to Italy.

Buon viaggio e speriamo che tornate!

Last dinner

Technically, this wasn't my aunt and uncle's last dinner. But the three of us were heading to Rome the following day while Nathan headed to work. Their plane left out of Rome, so we went up the day before in order to (1) visit the hot spots other than the Vatican, and (2) avoid getting up at 4:30am to make the three hour drive to the Rome airport from our house.

Now there's a back story to this dinner. First, our landlady and her children own a resort hotel nearby. When Mamma Anna, our landlady, found out my aunt and uncle were coming, she said she wanted us to come for Sunday lunch. I'd called her the week before, and as we've already clearly established in this blog, my telephone Italian is sketchy, at best. I was able to get from her that she was out of town and I should call her son, our landlord. That's always an adventure, to put it nicely. Ciro doesn't have my cell phone number (only Nathan's), so when I call, he either doesn't answer due to it being an unknown number or he answers, but I'm not who he is expecting. Which means when I start speaking, he's caught off guard. After our exchange of greetings, our conversations always, always  consist of a version of the same. I say something, and Ciro says, "I do not understand you." I switch to the other language...same response. I speak slower...same. I switch up the placement of words, I cut out all extra words other than the noun and the verb - as in..."pay rent." We hang up with me having no idea what will happen next - either someone is going to show up at the house (Mamma Anna, possibly with a handyman) or sometimes I call Nathan and ask him to have a go at calling Ciro. That always goes much better.

In this instance, Nathan and I had a back and forth for days on who was going to call Ciro. I lost. I called on Monday, no answer. I called on Tuesday, no answer. I called on Wednesday, no answer. So we made dinner reservations at an agriturismo with a beautiful view over the bays. On Thursday, I called Ciro in order to tell him we were ready to pay our rent. He answered (yay!), and when I explained that I was calling about the rent, he said something along the lines of, "Bring your parents to dinner this weekend." We believe Mamma Anna must have told him that he better invite us to dinner. Mamma Anna is a very tiny lady, but she is not one with whom to be trifled! I told him my aunt and uncle were visiting, not my parents, and that this was their last day. So he changed the invitation to that night - come to the hotel that night for dinner. Then he threw out a whole bunch of time questions ranging from 6pm to 9pm, and hung up. I didn't know if were supposed to go or at what time. Time to call in reinforcements - Nathan (if only he'd called first, we could have avoided the middleman, or middlewoman, as the case may be). And no joke, that night at dinner, Ciro gently scolded me for calling him on my aunt and uncle's last day in town. Sometimes, I really just want to cry in public.

Nathan and I had not been to the hotel yet, so we had no idea what to expect. Walking up, a lady at the desk pointed to a table in a nice looking dining area and told us to take a little walk as it would be about 15 minutes. We wandered about the pool deck, enjoying the view over Lake Fusaro and the beautiful grounds, wondering if we are indeed allowed to use the pool this summer as Ciro had indicated at the time of our lease signing. Finally, a man came up and spoke to us in rapid dialect (not Italian!). He finally got us to follow him...around the pool, around a party room that was setting up for some type of disco party, down a garden path, and into one of the the most luxurious restaurants we've seen since we moved to Italy. Our table had apparently been moved to this restaurant that didn't even seem to be open. Frescoes on the ceiling, beautiful carpets and upholstery, creamy white linens on the tables. We sat, our server brought us wine and water, and then Ciro appeared. He did not eat with us, but did ask us what we wanted, so we were able to request "land food." This usually stops the barrage of dishes with octopus as the main ingredient. Our server, a wonderful gentlemen who continued so diligently to communicate with us, despite our complete inability to speak the Neapolitan dialect, brought us dish after dish after dish of delectables and in between these visits, he stood a few feet away, at the ready to help us. We were a little disconcerted at the fact that this restaurant was clearly staffed with a cook and a waiter solely for us. And we wondered why they didn't leave us in the more informal restaurant where our table had been. Had the restaurant staff set us up there, and when Ciro saw it, he moved us to the formal restaurant? Did the staff see that we'd dressed nicely and think we wanted the more formal restaurant? As is normal, we had absolutely no idea of what was going on and why things happened the way they did.

We called it quits after the generous helping of pasta that followed all the appetizers, and the look of disappointment on our server's face just about did us in. Here was this man, waiting only on us, who had been so helpful, and it was as if we'd just killed his puppy. But three of our party of four had barely been able to fit in their pasta course, and one of us couldn't even eat half of it (okay, that was me, I confess).

This is just the cheese plate, for four people, and was one of about 10 appetizers!

 Then Ciro showed up asking if we liked the food and why we didn't want the next course. We tried to be effusive in our thanks because the meal truly was delicious. We were able to sit and visit with Ciro, before he offered to make us nutella pizzas for dessert in the other restaurant. Astonishing how the word "nutella" opened up a huge hole in my stomach. Ciro left us to finish up, and we headed to the other location. And then we found out our server must have been given firm instructions to take good care of us...as we walked through some gardens, around a couple of buildings and down another path, we missed the turn for the cafeteria and were headed to the parking lot. Before we realized it and corrected, this man had come up behind us and told us we couldn't leave because we hadn't had our coffee yet, and he proceeded to herd us back with him to the new restaurant. He was not letting us leave without coffee, at the very least. We enjoyed our coffee and yummy, chocolate goodness for dessert before heading home, well and truly sated and hoping that Ciro had understood just how much we appreciated the dinner.

Showing Them Centro

Hand of Herculus, National Archaeological Museum

The day to show my aunt and uncle Centro Napoli had arrived. As I previously wrote about  with Paige and Julia's Centro visit, this can go either way. Paige and Julia happened to love it. Regardless of what you think you'll feel about Centro, you cannot visit Naples and not go into Centro. It is Naples - it's the vibrancy, the noise, the chaos, and yes, the trash. It is exactly what guidebooks and podcasts talk about. I've recently been listening to some different podcasts about Naples, some of which include call-ins. Without fail, the callers say something along the lines of, "I went to southern Italy a few years ago, and we skipped Naples because we'd heard about the crime." Naples has this reputation of being such a hotbed of crime that even seasoned travelers and well-known tour guides either skip it or have a "get-in, get-out" strategy. And so, a beautiful city with treasures beyond compare goes unrecognized and without those valuable tourist dollars that are probably the only thing to begin moving this city out of the feudal, dark ages to which it seems to have returned.

Here's how the folks propped up family photos 2000 years ago.

With purses firmly across our bodies (and we never felt unsafe), we set off on the metro line nearby for downtown. We followed roughly the same route as I did with Julia and Paige by first heading to the National Archaeological Museum. I have no idea where I read it, but some guidebook described this museum as "dusty" and "tired." That description couldn't be further from the truth. With light and soaring expanses of white marble, I enjoy just walking into the museum. I have yet to get the audioguide to the museum, but it really would be very helpful. While most rooms have a large, English translation on the wall describing the collection and pointing out particularly remarkable items, I think an audioguide is necessary to get the full value.

When visiting with Paige and Julia, we'd gone up to the third floor, where the frescoes from Pompeii were supposed to be. We wandered through rooms of amazing bronze statues, collections of ivory, glass, and silver from Pompeii and Herculaneum, and even an old papyrus (from the Villa of Papyri in Herculaneum - over 1700 scrolls were found in excavations!) - but no frescoes. With Mike and Katrina, while in this large, former library turned painting gallery,  we walked to the other end of the room in order to see an old sundial...and there found the doorway to the frescoes. And what frescoes there were! Rooms and rooms, little ones and big ones, all kinds of subjects, all kinds of techniques - some were paintings, some were faux doorways/windows to the outside world, some were just wallpaper type. How amazing to live in a home with such beauty covering the walls. 

We also found a model of Pompeii, complete with the frescoes (that are now in the museum) painted in miniature on the walls in the locations where they were found. Just amazing.

After lunch at Sorbillo, my favorite pizzeria downtown, we went to see the Veiled Christ statue at Capella Sansevero (written about in the post Centro Napoli) and then took a walk down Spaccanapoli, the ancient road of Naples, built about 2500 years ago to connect Naples with the world beyond. While walking Spaccanapoli, we ducked into Chiesa del Gesu Nuovo. I'm never failed to be astonished when wandering into a church. Even the most unassuming, little church on the corner will generally have at least one piece of breathtaking art, wood carved railing in front of the altar, or inlaid marble floor. Gesu Nuovo didn't fail us and presented an elaborate organ facade, inlaid marble walls and columns, large art in the side chapels, and a few sculptures to finish things off.

In need of a break for our feet, we headed to Cafe Gambrinus, sitting on the edge of Piazza Plebiscito. Cafe Gambrinus has a bad rap among locals and guidebooks alike, as all anyone ever mentions is that it's overpriced. But Cafe Gambrinus is one of Naples' oldest coffee bars and was a haven for the literary intellectuals back in the day - Oscar Wilde is said to have spent time hanging about here. The previous week, Paige, Julia and I had stopped in for a coffee while standing at the bar. For three coffees, we paid the princely sum of 3.40euros, about .40 more than we would have paid elsewhere. We'd taken at peak at the two, richly decorated rooms for sit down patrons, and I decided to return soon and take a table. With heavy, velvet drapes swagged back, frescoes on the walls and ceilings, and tuxedoed waiters, what better place for my aunt, uncle and me to rest our feet this day. We could even get gelato while we were at it. The cafe was a quiet, beautiful, and relaxing spot to gather our energies for our next assault on seeing and doing it all. And it was only about 3euros more per person to enjoy the beauty and history while we relaxed in comfort, not crowded into a small table shoved in the corner with masses of people bumping us on their way to and from the stand-up bar.

From Cafe Gambrinus, we enjoyed the pedestrian area of Chiaia for an hour or so before heading home to rest our over-stimulated brains. Another successful day. My aunt and uncle were loving their trip, and I loved the opportunity to share our new life with them.

Centro Napoli

For Paige and Julia's first day in Naples, we headed off on the Metro to tour Centro (Naples downtown area). Centro can go either way for visitors. It is chaotic, urban, loud, and crowded. You have to constantly watch for speeding motorscooters, cars driving down the small alley where you're walking, and keep one hand on your purse, which must be looped across your body rather than just hanging from one shoulder. And no nice or flashy jewelry visible. Centro is filled with gorgeous architecture that is difficult to see because you are (a) watching the ground to avoid those pesky, uneven cobblestones that are so very charming, (b) looking over your shoulder for the car or scooter that's about to run you down, or (c) trying to avoid the sheer mass of people bouncing off one another like ping-pong balls. For those who can handle the urban jungle, centro is fantastic - filled with the gorgeous architecture I already mentioned, hundreds of lovingly cared for shrines tucked away on the exterior walls, Italians living their lives rather than catering to tourists, housewives on their balconies hanging laundry on the line strung across the alley or lowering the bucket with her money to pay the vegetable man as he sends up her order, and churches filled with beautiful floors, walls, and artwork are quite literally on every corner.

Our first stop was the Naples Archaeological Museum, considered one of the foremost archeological museums in Europe. Beyond a first floor so filled with beautiful, marble statues that I eventually couldn't focus on the individual works, the upper floors contain the treasures excavated from Pompeii and Herculaneum - the two main cities buried under the ash of Mount Vesuvius's 79AD eruption. I love the frescoes - frescoes are everywhere in this country, on the ceilings, the walls, and even among quiet, barely known and visited ruins. The ancients, and then 1500 years later, the renaissance folks, loved their frescoes (although the renaissance time period frescoes were the economical answer to the very expensive, labor-intensive, tapestries previously favored among the upper classes). And a week later, when I took my aunt and uncle to the same museum, I found that Paige, Julia and I had missed an entire wing of the museum with astonishingly intact frescoes. So the frescoes are great, but where I really drop my jaw is with the mosaics. I have zero skill in drawing and painting, so when I look at the mosaics, I just can't believe that the artists took tiny, chips of stone and then arranged them into scenes that show life, movement, shading, and emotion. Even the smallest of the mosaics captures my amazement, so the wall sized ones are nothing short of a miracle.

Centro is also home to the very best pizza in the entire world (confirmed by numerous critics and travel writers, so not just my very biased opinion). My absolute favorite is Sorbillo, which a friend and I found one day by accident as we wandered around downtown after our language class. The wait wasn't too bad, we enjoyed the pizza, and I later found out that we'd just happened upon a local favorite. It's the only place I ever return to over and over in spite of the rude service (atypical in Italy). Paige and Julia had their first taste of pizza in Naples, and it was good!

Christmas Alley is nearby, an area where artisans make the presepes (nativities) and presepe figures by hand and one of the things Naples is most known for. And Cappella Sansevero is only a few, short blocks away. Cappella Sansevero, I've written before, is home to the Veiled Christ sculpture. No photos are allowed, but following the link will show you exactly why this small chapel is, to me, the single most important site in Naples - an absolute "don't miss." I've been blessed with the opportunity to travel throughout Europe in the past, and we've lived all over the U.S., including near the Smithsonian in D.C. I enjoy museums and will usually visit what's nearby. Of the thousands of sculptures and statues I've seen, this one is "The One," more beautiful than David, in Florence's Accademia Museum, more emotional than Michelangelo's Pieta, in Rome's St. Peter's Basilica. In person and up close, the Veiled Christ brings tears to your eyes, either due to the subject matter or awe of the sheer skill by sculptor Giuseppe Sanmartino or both. I wrote of my amazement in taking little pieces of stone and creating a mosaic, but even more confounding is taking a block of hard marble and chipping out a discernible body with muscles and veins defined, yet the whole thing covered with a skin clinging veil. How? As if the Veiled Christ weren't enough, Cappella Sansevero is home to yet another amazing sculpture, Disinganno, of a fisherman surrounded by a fishing net that is folded in on itself in places - all out of marble, and yet one can so clearly see the the holes in the net, the places where the net lies on top of itself, and underneath, the man. I did a quick check, and Veiled Christ doesn't even make the top 100 in lists of greatest sculptures. To visit it, you walk down an alley most likely filled with garbage, make a turn, buy a ticket from the office that may or may not close for the afternoon, then walk down the block and enter an unassuming door...and into a place that will prove itself far worthier than those ever more popular museums so crowded you must make a reservation, wait in line for hours, spend more hours walking through miles of corridors filled with jostling tourists, all just as tired, hot, and hungry as you are, before being spit out into the street, unable to remember what you've just seen.

As if all this we'd seen in the past few hours wasn't enough to actually fill several days, we also did an underground tour of Naples through Napoli Sotterana. I'd heard how interesting it was and had yet to take the tour. We dutifully joined in with the English speaking group, followed our adorable guide down the street and around a few turns to an unmarked door with apartments above it, into a lobby with some nice, presepe examples, and down the stairs to the ancient, Greek theater. Before the Romans were here, this place was part of Magna-Grecia. Beneath modern Naples lie Greek and Roman ruins, complete with forums, temples, theaters, and a huge network of tunnels and cisterns. Many of these places became the landfills for the homes built above them - what's easier than opening your window or the little hole in your floor to get rid of the garbage. In fact, in one place we walked, our guide explained that the trash was too difficult to remove, so rather than digging beneath it to the original floor, a new floor was just paved on top of all the trash. "What lies beneath" is a near constant refrain as I wander around ruins, both those of the urban chaos and when I'm out in the suburbs watching a ruin disappear into a shrub covered hillside.

The main part of the tour took us down into the aforementioned network of cisterns and tunnels, once used by the Romans. We could see the foot and handholds used by the man in charge of skimming the water with a net - he'd climb down into the cistern using small square indentations cut into the rock, then walk above the water with the net to clean it. In some areas, there is still a bit of water that flows through. During WWII, these areas were used as bunkers, and hundreds of people spent much of their lives down here to escape the bombing. During WWII, Naples was the most bombed city in Italy. While Neapolitans lived under fascism for more than 20 years, German occupation was just taking things too far. The people of the city rebelled and freed Naples in 1943.

Following our Sotterana tour, we found that we'd been a little too interested in all that Centro has to offer and had seen only about half the sites on our  list. Aching and blistered feet dictated a return to the metro and home. We would just have to return.

Yumm, Sorbillo!

My aunt and uncle eating their first Neapolitan pizza...at Sorbillo's in Centro (downtown), my favorite pizzeria!

Daily Life - Eating Out

I'm long overdue for my promised "Daily Life" posts. So sorry.

Last year, whenever our upcoming move to Italy came up in conversation, talks of food inevitably followed...usually in the form of envy. Therefore, a few days after our arrival in Italy, and with great excitement, we headed off base with another couple for our first, real deal Italian meal. I blogged about that first restaurant experience in the post Outside the Wire, and that experience has repeated itself over and over again. The thing you need to know about Naples is that their food is the one thing the Neopolitans pride themselves on above all else. They may have trash covering every street corner, a stranglehold on the local government, traffic that is known throughout Europe as the absolute craziest, but food...food is theirs. And their pride is well-earned, because the food is fantastic...BUT...it's very different from what Americans think of as "Italian food." On my recent trip to the "nord," we ate food that would be served in Italian restaurants back home. But, here in Naples, you have two real choices: pizza or seafood. Pizza deserves it's on blog post, so I'm not even going to write about it right now. To go out to eat at a restaurant (not a pizzeria), we've found a pretty standard formula for what we're going to eat and how the evening will play out. It goes something like this:

We go to a restaurant and are the only people there. That's because we have gone to eat dinner at 7:30p.m, far, far too early for Italians. Generally, by the time we leave (about 9pm), the restaurant has a steady trickle of families streaming in for their meal. Families including young children.

A kind, male (always male) waiter gets up from the table where he is watching T.V. in the back ("Simpsons" is quite popular) and asks, "Antipasti?" - he is asking us if we want appetizers. In almost all cases, we do not get a menu. In our Area Orientation, we were warned against this practice and told to insist upon a menu. However, I'd say at least 70% of the restaurants we visit do not have menus. And we've yet to have been taken advantage of except on Christmas Eve in Rome. Generally, we're brought delicious food and charged a fair price for it. We always reply in the affirmative for the antipasti and order a bottle of water (frizzante) at the same time as well as some table wine. Water is either bottled naturale or frizzante (carbonated) - there is no table water/tap water as in America. As for wine, we go with the table wine and haven't had a bad glass yet.

The waiter shows back up with a few plates of food, always including some fried, herb dough balls. I don't know what these are exactly, but they are delicious. The shape and outer fried bit of a southern hushpuppie, but inside, yummy, salty, goodness. Another plate is going to be the fresh octopus with lemon juice, sometimes over a bed of lettuce, sometimes not. Also, always delicious. Really...this is from someone who supposedly "hates seafood." All I can say is that it is completely different here. There is some type of grilled vegetable, whatever is in season.

After a few plates of antipasti and just when we've gorged ourselves, more plates of antipasti come out - more fried foods, maybe a ball of mozzarella (Nathan's favorite) or some creamy ricotta (my favorite), some more fresh seafood in the form of anchovies or oysters or shrimp. We now know enough to look at each other and begin assigning food to each other. We hate not eating it all, but it's just so much, so the bargaining begins: "If you'll eat the rest of the octopus, I'll eat three more dough balls," or something like that. At some restaurants, even more antipasti has then come out, to the point where we begin looking at each other in horror and wondering how much food is even left in the kitchen. At this point, our bargaining takes a turn towards nastiness (on both sides): "Last time, I had to eat all the octopus, mozzarella, and the anchovies! You need to step it up." Finally,we sit back, plates of half-eaten antipasti still littering the table.

Here, in an Alberobello restaurant, we're on round two (or maybe three) of the plates of antipasti. There is prosciutto, basil souffle, bruschetta, two types of fried things, and a trio selection of delicacies (here, we had tripe - I tasted it, and that's the end of that). This may not seem like a lot of food, but imagine two prior rounds of this...and this is the appetizer! A little different from you're average, wilty salad appetizer back home.

The waiter notices we are quiet now and returns. "Primi?" (First Course?). At this, the routine varies. Either a menu appears, or we get a choice of two things, or the waiter just tells us what he's going to bring us, or we just say "Si," and more food appears. The few times we've eaten somewhere with a menu, what we want off the menu is rarely available. It really is best to just let your waiter bring you what he wants. The primi is always pasta, and here in Naples, it's generally pasta with seafood. I seem to recall one time when a spaghetti marinara was available, but generally, it's pasta with seafood. After about four bites, I am so full that I have reached misery point, that point where you are just staring at your plate, knowing you need to eat more for whatever reason, but also knowing that if you put another bite of food into your mouth, bad things are going to begin to happen.

But we are still not done. I have never, never made it to "secondo" (second course). While I surreptitiously look up the Italian word for "full" each and every time (I seem to have a mental block in learning the word), Nathan spends a few desperate moments trying to figure out if he can really fit in a secondo. He has made it to secondo twice, and only because he wanted to try it the specific dish, not because he actually wanted more food. Secondo is usually meat - beef or pork. It's served by itself. If you want a side dish, you order that separately. You can have roast potatoes, grilled vegetables or a salad. Secondo is for the heavy hitters. I watch in awe when other diners order secondo. I suppose one might (maybe, maybe, not sure) be able to skip antipasti and primi to go straight to secondo, but really, that's just not done. I certainly wouldn't try that at a restaurant I hope to frequent in the future.

Okay...time to rest, breathe, roll your eyes to heaven and think about how to walk to the car or back home with all that food sloshing around. After a sufficient amount of rest time, back comes the waiter to inquire about "dolci" (dessert) and "caffe" (coffee). Oddly, just the word "dolci," makes all the food currently in my stomach magically rearrange. Whereas 30 seconds ago I thought I was going to pass out from calorie overload, now I've reached the "why yes, I would love a tiramisu" phase of the evening. Dessert is yummy, coffee is a great digestivo. Evening over, right.

Nope...limoncello time. Or grappa. Or a coffee liqueur. Or a bit of each. You absolutely must have a digestivo. Must. The name says it all - "digestivo." Italians believe that a small drink helps your food digest in your stomach, so that is why one must partake. In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans steeped herbs and seeds in alcohol as an aid to digestion, which has led to the current philosophy. I did a quick bit of research and found the French belief is that your full stomach can now handle a beverage with a high alcohol content. Pick your reason or not. After all, do you really need a reason to drink a bit of limoncello?

Travels in Italia - Firenze II

We had failed to do what every guidebook recommends regarding the Uffizi and Accademia museums...get a reservation. We decided to take our chances since we were in low season, and the chance paid off. We walked in with no wait at every place we visited (Venice, too, for that matter). With the Uffizi being the grandaddy museum and knowing it would be a couple of hours of intense art overload, we headed there first. Rick Steves has some phenomenal AudioTours on iTunes, and I surely don't mind pushing them. It was great to put in my earphones and wander through the museum, leaving my hands free of a guidebook and eyes free to take in the art instead of read about it. Still, though, my absolute favorite thing about the Uffizi is the ceilings. They are magical and every single square inch is covered with gorgeous paintings. Next time I visit Florence, I am going to take a hand mirror so I can enjoy those ceilings without neck strain. One of the Uffizi's most famous paintings is Birth of Venus (this is the one where a naked Venus, with her bits and bobs covered with long, flowing hair, is standing on a half shell). I have to admit that in person, this one didn't impress me as much as I was expecting, perhaps because it's surrounded by so much other talent or perhaps because the colors are so faded. I was expecting more vibrancy...and, I'm currently in my I-like-bright-colors stage. This will change in a few years, and then favorites will change as well. With our Uffizi visit over, we needed sustenance, and found it at a lovely sandwich shop, 'Ino, right around the corner from the Uffizi. We liked it so much that we returned the next day as well.

Next up, we walked to the Accademia, via the Duomo. Now Florence's Duomo is a sight to behold. It's exterior is all white, pink and green marble, which greatly appeals to my Lilli Pulitzer love. We walked past the Duomo another night right at sunset, and when the setting sun hits the facade of this marble, it glows. A little Duomo Fun Fact: Building started on it around 1300, and it's dome was the largest in the world for hundreds of years. However, at the time of building, there was no technology for a dome of that size, so it was built with just a flat roof, the people being confident that someone would come along eventually with the knowledge to build the dome that was designed. Even today, the dome is the largest brick one ever built.

A small section of the Baptistry doors

A quick pop into the interior of the Duomo proved to be disappointing as it's practically empty and has very little magic or interesting art. So off we headed to the Accademia and our date with David. David was originally commissioned for the roof of the Duomo, so Michelangelo carved him with a disproportionately large head due to perspective. But during the work, it was decided to place him in front of Palazzo Vecchio instead. A copy stands there today while the Accademia houses the real deal. Michelangelo ticked off all his fellow sculptors of the time because while they would pick out the perfect pieces of marble, then sketch designs onto them and chip out their designs, Michelangelo would just start chiseling away. He believed the sculpture was in the marble waiting to get out. The Accademia holds several unfinished sculptures of Michelangelo as well, which gives us a great look at his incredible skill, and visitors also get to see a detailed, gorgeous, carved wooden crucifix, which Michelangelo carved at only age 17. It was a thank you gift to a church that had allowed him to dissect bodies from their hospital in order to study the human form. Age 17!

Okay...I lied. This is the interior of Florence's Duomo's dome - it has a gorgeous painting on it. However, this and a painting of Dante are really the only two pieces of artwork in the HUGE Duomo, so, relative to all the other churches we visited on our trip, Florence's Duomo interior was uninspiring...nice to visit since we didn't wait in line, but certainly not worth it at another time of year when lines are long.

After all this heavy art, it was time for some shopping. We headed to the nearby San Lorenzo market, a perfect haven for leather goods, silk ties, scarves, and trays. Haggling is acceptable here, and for those of you who read my posting on all my trip souvenirs, this market is the site of the dapper, young scarf seller. He's so adorable that you just have to buy a scarf based on his personality. This was the place for leather purses, suitcases, briefcases, wallets, and anything else that can be made out of leather. And finally, our last visit of the day was to the Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy, begun as the herb garden of the church's monks about 700 years ago. Today, they sell perfume, elixirs, tonics, and even products for your pet. It's beautiful and ritzy inside, and would have been much more enjoyable without pushing and shoving tourists crowding the desks in each room. There is a room for teas and tonics, a room for home items & pet care, and a room for skin care and perfume. The staff dealt amazingly well with incredibly rude tourists, save one lady, who ignored me when I asked her a question, refused to help me in favor of people who'd come up after me to her table, then talked about me to her co-worker in Italian...but since we were in the "nord" (north), I could understand her. I only wish my Italian were good enough for me to have called her on it in Italian...it would have been a great "Pretty Woman" moment.

Have you seen the Hitchcock movie, "The Birds?" I think he got his inspiration after a visit to Florence.

After a busy day, we were ready to relax and had yet another enjoyable meal at one of Anna's restaurant recommendations, Osteria Marione. For me, one of the greatest parts of this trip was the eating out. We had delicious food everywhere we went, and it was so nice to get to order off of a menu...and to have choices other than pizza or seafood.

Travels in Italia - Firenze

Florence's famous, Ponte Vecchio bridge over the Arno River

Florence gave the world Galileo, Dante, Michelangelo, Donatello, Machiavelli, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, and a true example of last but not least, Salvatore Ferragamo. It ushered in the Renaissance age and woke the world up. As for K and I, we needed waking up. Venice was exhausting! We slowed our pace down in Florence, starting with our trip on the fast (Eurostar) train from Venice, which got us to Florence in about three hours. We had reservations at the lovely Hotel Relais Cavalcanti, a boutique hotel about a five minute walk from the Uffizi with two sisters running the place who are fantastic communicators. We had multiple emails prior to our visit confirming arrival time and providing incredibly detailed directions straight to the front door from the train station. After showing us the common areas and our very pretty room, Anna returned with a map of the city upon which she had handmarked in color-coded highlighters suggested sites and restaurants. She even included budget info with the restaurants! We quickly decided to follow her recommendations, and found all of them to be just great throughout our stay in her lovely city.

Sculpture filled loggia outside Palazzo Vecchio

After a little rest, we headed out at dusk to explore the neighborhood. Our hotel was located in Florence's large, pedestrian zone in the historic district, so we were able to ease back into the world of traffic slowly. About three minutes from our hotel, we happened upon an outdoor leather market, held in a place that seems like it could have been hosting outdoor markets for hundreds of years. A little guidebook searching confirmed this - Mercato Nuovo...I missed taking a look at the circled X on the ground in the center of the market. This marks the spot where people were dropped from the ceiling as a bankruptcy punishment. Another few minutes past this, and we came upon the Piazza della Signoria with it's most beautiful, covered loggia containing a multitude of large sculptures and bronze statues. By now it was dark, but this loggia was well-lit and quite magical in the dark. The piazza was quiet, and the visitors wandering around the statues were contemplative. Palazza Vecchio, Florence's Town Hall and a museum, had it's doors open, and inside we could glimpse some decorative walls. We wandered in, only to find a gorgeous courtyard with frescoed walls and ceilings, carved columns that were a riot of swirls and vines, and beautiful paintings. It was a delightful, quick visit and an introduction to the reason Florence is considered one of the art capitals of the world.

Amazing courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio (a museum and the Town Hall)

All of this walk was designed to take us towards one of Anna's recommended restaurants. Arriving at 7:10, we were too early by 20 minutes for their opening, so we headed for cocktails at the bar next door, Moyo. And there we learned an amazing secret of Florence. The cocktail bars put out appetizer spreads to rival a buffet, and these are included in the cost of your 8euro cocktail. One drink, and a person could eat their fill of cheese, sandwiches, pizza, pasta salads, chicken bites, and the list goes on. In addition, Moyo makes a real deal Bellini. The Bellini was invented by Harry's Bar in Venice and is a peach puree in prosecco (Italian version of champagne). I ordered bellinis all over Venice and kept getting this premixed, straight out of the bottle drink that you can buy in American grocery stores. Disappointing. But at Moyo in Florence, I finally got a real one...and it was good.

Shopping Chiaia

Today my friend, K., took me to the Chiaia district of Napoli, a ritzy, beautiful, clean area with that Old World charm one expects to find in Italy. She and her husband love walking around Chiaia, and having seen it at last, I can see why. It is charming, with beautiful buildings, quiet streets, tree filled alleys leading down to the sea or up the hill to grand villas, and the best of the best for shopping. We're talking Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Ferragamo. We met in Piazza Amadeo, where the Metro drops off, and as I emerged from the empty Metro and entered an empty piazza, confusion reigned. This is not the Napoli I know. My friend was already there waiting and had realized today was Epiphany, a national holiday here in Italy. We later found the crowds in our walk around the district, but for the morning, we had blessed quiet. I said it was clean, however, Chiaians love to walk their dogs around - this, apparently, is where the fancy dog owners live, and it must just be too much to actually pick up Fifi's poop. One of us stepped in it right away. Our Italian language instructor had informed us that this is considered good luck. I think she made that up.

After a stop off for caffe, we headed down the street, right away passing the gorgeous, baroque, Chiesa Santa Teresa. Mass was just ending, so we popped inside and found two inspiring paintings, a worn and beautiful, tile floor, Christmas presepe, crystal chandeliers forming an arch over the altar, inlaid marble half walls, and a frescoed ceiling. That little church packs a punch. The coral colored facade is covered with statues and cherubs to delight the eye.

One of Chiaia's storefronts

Most of the shops were closed, but we lucked into one filled with clothes on saldi (sale!). Sadly, most did not fit, but we gazed longingly into windows of all the other shops with their large SALDI signs and made plans to return soon. Walking along the waterfront, we took the longer, scenic route to our real destination: Brandi Pizzeria, a pizzeria in business since 1780 and the inventor of the Pizza Margherita...or at least the pizzeria who named it. The original name of the pizzeria was Pietro...a basta cosi (Peter...and that's enough). The owner, Peter, did not have sons and gave over his pizzeria to Enrico Brandi. Brandi later left the pizzeria to his daughter. In 1889, the daughter and her husband were invited to the Royal Palace during a visit by King Umberto I and Queen Margherita di Savoia. The husband prepared three pizzas to present to the Royals, including a white pizza, a pizza with sardines, and a tomato and mozzarella pizza. Queen Margherita particularly liked the tomato and mozzarella pizza, and so the name Pizza Margherita was born. The pizza was delicious, and the atmosphere even better. The host (owner? manager? head waiter?) wore a full suit and wandered about refilling glasses while a talented guitarist showed up with quite a repertoire and got the whole restaurant clapping along.

Every pizzeria I've visited is different. Some quiet and unassuming, some bustling and packing the patrons in, some as family run establishments, and yet others as elegant restaurants that happen to serve only pizza. It's a fascinating range of experiences with only one constant...there's not a bad pizza to be found.

I can't wait to return to Chiaia and see it when the shops, bars, and trattorias have their shutters flung open...maybe even tomorrow.

La Fontana Immacolatella, located along Napoli's waterfront

Eating Out

Last night, we ate at a Chinese restaurant. We do see the irony in living in a country with some of the best food in the world, yet paying good money for Chinese food; however, since we arrived here, at least eight people have said some version of, “There’s a great Chinese restaurant in Arco Felice. You’ll be living near it.” Eight people! That’s one for every week we’ve lived in Italy. The kicker was when a perfect stranger who came to pick up some of our moving boxes called me back later in the day yesterday to say, “Since you just arrived here, you may not realize you have a great Chinese restaurant down the street.” Not only have people volunteered it as a great restaurant, but they use it as a landmark when trying to tell us where other places are. We decided we needed to check it out earlier rather than later, and it did not disappoint.  Food was excellent, and it was fun to see a Chinese menu arranged Italian style.

I may have already written about this, and if so, my apologies, but in Italy, meals come in courses. In medium to nicer restaurants, you order each course after finishing the first. First is your antipasti, just like an American appetizer menu. Next is primi (first) of pasta (or…if you’re at the Chinese restaurant, rice/noodles), next is secondo and is your meat and/or seafood plate. This does not come with sides. Your veggies are a separate course, which can be ordered with the secondo. If you choose a salad rather than veggies, the salad is ordered after the secondo. Next up is the best part…dolci (dessert). After all of this, the waiter brings two bottles to your table – grappa and limoncello. These are complimentary, and you sit and drink a cup or two of your digestivo. In Italian restaurants, you always pay a “coperto,” which is a cover charge for sitting down. Think of this as the tip for the busboys. It’s generally 1-2 euro per person. Meal tipping is 5-10%. 

Another little note about eating out in Italy…there are lots of “bars.” Every block has one or two. A bar in Italy is completely different. It’s the coffee shop. So it’s a completely different connotation to arrange a meeting at a bar. Some (many) have only counters as you must pay extra for a table, even in a coffee or gelato shop. You decide what you want and pay the cashier. Grab the receipt and present it to the barista, telling him/her what you want to drink and which pastry you ordered. In some very busy bars, the barista ignores you until you put your .10 tip next to your receipt. But in most cases, after drinking your coffee while standing at the bar, you can leave your little coin next to the empty cup. Coffee is not some large cup of what the Italians call “brown water,” which you sit in a Central Perk type place and sip for hours while visiting with friends. Coffee is small cups of espresso, which have less caffeine than a cup of American coffee, and you enjoy them while standing at the bar socializing or down it in a couple of drinks and head off to face the rest of your day. There are strict rules for what type of coffee to drink depending on the time of day. I follow none of them. I like my cappuccino and order it all the time, even after 11am! The horror! For those who are really interested in the health benefits of coffee and Italy’s coffee culture, this is a great blog post by another blogger here in Naples: The Espresso Break: Drink Coffee, It's Good For Your Health

Another observation on life here in Naples was brought home last night in the Chinese restaurant. It’s a small place, only about 12 tables. I’d noticed this table of three young boys who looked to be about 10 years old. After half an hour or so, I realized there was no adult with them, not even one at a nearby table. They were active and clearly having a fun time together, but were behaving appropriately for a restaurant. They sat down, ordered, were drinking their Cokes out of wine glasses, sharing food, and looked for all the world like a group of elderly men enjoying an evening out. That merging of time in which I suddenly see the same scene in the past or future happens so often here, in this place where the ancient world is such a part of modern life. Nathan said he imagined these three kids sitting around playing X-box, when one of them says, “Hey, want to go out for some Chinese,” and off they go to a nearby restaurant at 9:00pm. Age 10!

Outside the Wire

A few days back, we had a brief from the Commanding Officer (amazingly, he took over two hours out of his day to talk to us about the region - that's a lot of time for a busy man to spend with us), and he referred to the Support Site (where we temporarily live) as Mayberry, but encouraged us to "get outside the wire," meaning, "go off base, explore, don't stay in Little America all the time or you'll miss out." This base is Mayberry in some ways...kids can play safely, people can walk at night, your car window will still be intact in the morning, and you can go to sleep at night without lowering the lockdown shutters that cover every window and door. But it's a Mayberry surrounded by barbed wire, armed guards, and Hum-Vees manned by assault-weaponed, Italian Army types. Thus...get outside the wire to experience the real Italy.

We did just that tonight. We, along with another couple from our orientation class, drove to a nearby restaurant (Country House) using our GPS to get there. In order to go places here, you put in GPS coordinates, rather than a street name. We tried checking the restaurant's coordinates with Google Earth per instructions, but couldn't figure that out, so off we went anyway. Error one happened within a block of the gate when we accidentally got on the highway. No problem, the GPS recalculated and got us turned around. We followed that stupid GPS straight to our "destination," which took us to someone's house. Thankfully, we avoided the Chevy Chase error of knocking on the door to look for "sex." For some reason, I then suggested we just drive around looking for a street name we recognized (I don't know why I thought we'd recognize a street name in a foreign country in a town none of us had ever visited, but that became our plan.). And we eventually, after a few turns, found the restaurant - nowhere near where the GPS took us and down a very long driveway with only a small sign at the road. Not a clue how we managed to find this.

We had an absolutely delicious dinner...our first real dinner "outside the wire" that was not pizza! Caprese salad, antipasti, calamari, lobster, pasta, clams, mussles, tiramisu, chocolate souffle, and a bottle of wine. Absolutely delicious. I ordered the special of the day, lobster pasta, thinking it would be pasta with lumps of lobster. Nope - the plate showed up with half of it a yummy pasta dish and the other half a humongous lobster tail. I've never had one of these that I had to crack open myself. It went fairly well. When it came time to use the cracker thingies, I only lost the lobster half off the plate rather than shooting it across the room.

About this time during dinner, it occurred to us that we should have taken a GPS waypoint back at the base so we'd know how to get home. The food was good, wine even better, so we decided to worry about getting home once we were in the car. The restaurant is really only about 1-2 miles from the base, so we decided to follow our earlier plan of just driving around. Nathan gets the points for making not a single wrong turn!  [Note: Nathan was our driver and had only one regular-sized glass of wine - our rule while here in Italy for the designated driver.]

A mostly successful day. Really the only disturbing point was while at our little fieldtrip to the Housing Warehouse (where we took a look at the washers/dryers/fridges that we can have on loan), I noticed the sign below in a nearby garden:

Can't wait to try Limoncello now!