Ancient Clay

The MIC's main hall

We know we are a species obsessed with itself and its own past and origins. We know we are capable of removing from the sanctuary of the earth shards and fragments, and gently placing them in museums. Great museums in great cities—the hallmarks of civilization.” ― Kathleen Jamie

When we got up this morning, I really didn't feel like doing much. I don't have to tell you (unless you live in the North Pole, Antarctica, or some other God-forsaken place where the temperature never rises about 0) that heat and humidity will take the will to move out of you.  And, if it doesn't do that to you, then please send me some of whatever it is that makes you that way because I sure can use it.

15th century pharmacy jars from Faenza

At any rate, Mike didn't really want to sit around here again, so I compromised a bit and suggested we go to Faenza.  Most of you are probably saying, "Faenza?  What the heck is Faenza? " or "Where the heck is Faenza?" and/or "Who the heck would *go* to Faenza?"  Faenza is a small city (58.000+ people) about 31 miles from Bologna that we decided to visit because one of my friends recommended it. That said,  Faenza is not a tourist town, and there's not much to it other than the requisite palazzo, cathedral, and ceramics museum.

15th century serving pieces from Faenza

Yes, you read that right.  Faenza is home to the Museo internazionale delle Ceramiche (MIC), or International Museum of Ceramics.  Mike didn't believe it, either, but Faenza has been in the forefront of the ceramic world for centuries and is home to not only the Faenza Bianca (Faenza White) pottery but also majolica, a tin-glazed pottery.  Founded in 1908, the MIC has the greatest collection of ancient, modern, and contemporary ceramics in the world.  The ceramics in the collection include works from countries all over the world and span many centuries. Of course,  the MIC showcases Italian ceramics.

17th century plaque from Abruzzo

 (I need to step out again for a moment and comment on ceramics and the quote above.  I think that Jamie is right that we are obsessed with our history, and should we not be?  The things that we see in museums and in historical buildings are all so amazing for what they represent. It upsets me greatly that those hoodlums in the Middle East are destroying remnants of ancient civilizations.  Whether we like the art, the sculpture, the photos, the writings or not, they are part of our history, of our beginnings.)

17th century sculpture from Tuscany

What amazed me, as usual, was the fact that some of the pottery was so old yet in such good condition.  While much of it had been in private collections of royals and wealthy citizens, even more were ordinary pieces used in everyday life.  There were a number of cases dedicated to jars used in pharmacies (blue and white ceramics above), and several dedicated to dinnerware and serving pieces (bowls above).  A good number were, of course, religious in nature (above and below).  Many appeared during archeological digs, and many were donations from individuals, families, governments, etc.

Moses and Isaac on a plate—17th century Tuscany

"How much restoration do you think they've done?" Mike asked me when we were looking at a few pieces that were obviously put back together.  He was talking, however, about the colors.  I asked the docent at a desk near us.

"The only restoration," she told me, "is to put things together.  The paint, the glaze, are all original. But, may have had no restoration. They are in original condition."

Amazing.

I'll point out, as I did the other day, that religion played as huge a part in the ceramic work as it did in paintings during the 16-19th centuries.  That was, of course, due to the fact that most of what is now Italy was part of the Papal State,  and religion ruled almost every aspect of everyone's life.

17th century Marche

Both of us agreed that our favorite part of the museum was the contemporary ceramic sculpture. The ceramicists vying for the 39th annual Faenza Prize had their work on display, so it was interesting to see the 50 or so pieces in the running for the award.  As with most art, I don't get how some of the pieces qualified to be art, but that's me.  At the risk of upsetting my friends who think that a piece of white clay with a triangle sliced out of it is worthy of being in a museum, I'll just drop it (But! I do have a piece of white clay with a triangle sliced out of it that I'd love to sell you for $10,000 if you need it for your collection.)

21st century ceramic and glass sculpture

My favorite piece was the life-size copper tree (above) with glass and ceramic leaves hanging from it.  I want it for my house, but something tells me I can't afford it.  I may have to make one someday.

A ceramic water ox in competition for the Faneza Prize

We stayed about 90 minutes, most of which we spent sweating because the museum did not have air conditioning throughout.  Luckily, we had put water bottles in the freezer last night, so I kept mine clutched to my chest (Note it in the photo above) most of the morning.  It was still too hot, though, so after we left the musuem, we walked a few blocks, turned around, and caught the train home.

We're back to the dilemma of what to do tomorrow since the temperatures are going to be even higher.

Heaven only knows.

Of Heat & Humidity

Mike asking this friendly statue if he needs a new hat.

"If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?" —Steve Wright

The weather here has been miserable for the last week or so, and I'm blaming Mike.  Since he arrived, both the temperature and the humidity have steadily risen.  My friends here tell me that this much heat so early in summer is a bit unusual, so we think Mike brought some of that Las Vegas heat with him. We won't blame him for the humidity too much, though. That's how it is here.

I had not realized, by the way, just how humidity can affect people (and animals, for that matter). Lately, I notice that everyone shuffles along, not that they walk fast here anyway. Yours truly is one of them, by the way.  

"You look like a zombie today,"  Cesar said to me the day after Mike and I went to Modena. "Your eyes are ooo-ooo, and your hair is all..." He made some gesture with his hands.

"I feel like a zombie today," I shot back. "This heat is killing me."  Discomfort makes me really cranky at times.

Saturday after we returned from Piacenza, we went to the grocery to buy water, and we walked up the stairs to our flat slowly.

"You must be really tired," Mike observed.

"I am," I replied, "but what makes you say that now?"

"You've tripped twice on the steps," he said.

" True.  My legs are too tired to pick up that far," I moaned.  Discomfort also makes me a little whiny at times.

An open door we didn't enter on today's walk.

Mike and I were going to go to Mantova today, but Mantova, which is farther north, is hotter and more humid, so we stayed put. It was hot enough here.  I hate to admit that I don't have energy to do much. I worked on the magazine today, wrote notes for my own writing, and tried to fall asleep in the afternoon. Big fail on the third one, but I did get some work done. Yay for me. ;-)

 Around 4:30 we went for a walk in an area I had not traversed before.  When Alessandro took both of my groups on tours of the city, he told us to duck into open porticoes if we saw them because it was amazing what we could find.  Mike and I found an open door during our walk today.

"Let's go in here," he said.  Usually, I'd be a bit apprehensive, but since Alessandro had told us to do so and since the interior seemed not to be residential, I agreed.  What we found was the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Bologna and its library.   We walked upstairs part of the way to look at the statues that adorn the place and noticed the frescoes on the walls and ceilings.  Like almost every other older building around, this one had paintings of God and angels looking down on everyone.  That is, of course, due to the fact that the Catholic Church ran everything in Italy for hundreds of years. (More on that to come at some point.)

The fresco on the ceiling of the political science building.

We walked about 90 minutes employing a tactic we once used in NYC about eight years ago. We happened to be there while it was FREEZING, and to keep warm while we walked all over, we went from Starbucks to Starbucks to Barnes & Noble to Starbucks to any store that was open and had heat.  Since Bologna doesn't have Starbucks or BN, we went from Coop (grocery) to Coop to Insolito (dress shop) to Coop to Feltrinelli (bookstore) to Verdura (veggie market).  The furnace-like air was so oppressive that it got the best of us, and we headed back to Bar Santo Stefano and had frullati (Photo below).

Cesar and Lili make Mike's frullato. Mine's next.

A frullato is a blended fruit drink, and the only additive other than fruit is ice.  Mike had strawberry, orange, cherry, and peach.  I had cherry, orange, apricot, and lime.  i would have taken a photo of the drinks themselves, but I like them so much I forgot to do so.

It's almost 9:30 as I write this, and we're trying to figure out whether we want to go somewhere— Parma or Mantova—tomorrow. 

If I'm cranky tomorrow night, you'll know we headed out.

Of Crowded Trains and Photographs

Regional train

 “...There are too many idiots in this world.” ― Frantz Fanon

 There's been a lot of stuff going on this week (in Las Vegas) that has, in all honesty, affected me much more than it should.  I cannot stand idiots—those people who have no concern for others, who think they are the center of the universe, and who are just plain irritating to everyone around them (and probably know it and don't care). I know better, yet I am too sensitive to things that should really not affect me (I hope that makes sense.).

As I mentioned, we went to the fest in Piacenza yesterday. I was walking around stewing over this incident and mentally saying some not-so-nice things to people who will  never hear them.  At some point, Mike asked me if I was all right.  Eye roll.

"You know I'm not all right," I snipped.  "This crap is bothering me.  And don't tell me it shouldn't. I know it shouldn't."

"You just have to let it go, Babe," he said to me.  HUGE eye roll.

"Humph."  Not long after that, we walked by a booth selling t-shirts, and I saw one that read, "DON'T LET IDIOTS RUIN YOUR DAY."

For days my husband has been telling me that exact thing (as have a number of different friends), but for some reason, that t-shirt slapped a little bit of sense into me.  I started thinking about how I really do think too much and let that stuff bother me when, in the light of day, little people have little problems that cause them to create big commotions that, in the grand scheme of life, mean absolutely nothing to anyone but them. I really hope that made sense, but if it didn't to you it did to me. The weight of the week fell away, and I enjoyed the rest of the day.

 Well, I enjoyed most of it.

We got to the train station and were able to catch an earlier train than we thought. Unfortunately, the train (Top photo) was a regional train, not a regional veloce train. The differences are that the regional stop everywhere in the world, are older, and usually have poor or little air conditioning.  That meant what should have been a 90-minute journey on the cool, regional veloce train suddenly expanded to 115 minutes on a poorly air-conditioned regional.  That would not have been so bad except that everyone and his brother between Piacenza and Bologna was heading to the coast for La Notte Rosse (The Pink Nights), a weekend of huge concerts and parties up and down the coast.  

By the time we hit Modena, there was no room for anyone, and the last two seats in our coach was the window seat next to me and the window seat across the aisle.  If you look at the top photo, we were sitting in the seats immediately to the left of the door. The big graffiti "S" blocked the view of the window.

Full train with people in the aisles and doors

"Is that free?" a dude with duckbill hair and wearing shorts, t-shirt, and sunglasses asked me.

"Yes.  Yes," I told him.  "Please sit."  I prayed he didn't smell.  He plopped down before someone else coming in the door could get to the seat, and his friend, likewise duckbilled and dressed, grabbed the one across the aisle.  They left older women and men (and others) standing in the aisles and in the area between coaches (Photo above).  The train was, in short, PACKED, but Dumb and Dumber had their seats.  

(Sidebar:  I have a real problem with younger people not getting up and letting older ones sit or with men sitting while women stand. I've even seen parents let their five- and six-year-old kids sit while an older man or woman stands.  My mother would have smacked the crap out of me.  Apparently, it bothers me more than it bothers anyone else around here because I will get up and let someone else sit while younger people keep their heads down to avoid having to stand on their fragile legs.)

At any rate, the friend, oblivious to the fact that the air conditioning was running in our car, immediately opened the window next to him sending waves of heat over everyone.  One of the gals standing next to me in the aisle chastised him, but he ignored her.  The blonde you can see in the photo above asked the same girl, "Isn't the air conditioning on? Shouldn't we shut the window?"  Dumber just sat there and took out his phone.

As did Dumb sitting next to me, and for the next 30 minutes, he talked constantly on that phone.

"Yes, I can't believe how crowded the train is," he exclaimed probably 30 times. "I can't wait to get to Rimini.  We are going to party.  The train is packed.  I think most of us are going to Rimini or Ancona. This is going to be great." And on and on and on and on.  I had no idea who was on the other end of the phone, but that person didn't have a chance to say one word with motormouth. 

 Why lie? He was bothering the crap out of me because I was trying to do some work, and between his big mouth and the heat, I was getting cranky.  I rolled my eyes at Mike who was probably asleep behind his sunglasses. I rolled my eyes to myself.  I tried to block his conversation. I tried to ignore the fact that he had his legs stretched out all over the place. I tried to ignore the fact that he was starting to smell a little rancid. I watched the time knowing that the more I wanted that train to arrive in Bologna, the longer it would take for it to get there.  I tried to relax. HA..

As we neared Bologna, I took out my cell phone and tried to take a photo of the graffiti from the inside of the window.  I had slipped the phone back when I heard motormouth say,  "Wait a minute." He turned to me and said, "Did you take my photo?"

"Why would I take your photo?" I asked him.

"You took my photo," he insisted.  "Delete it now."

"I did not take your photo," I said back to him."

"Then let me see your phone," he snapped.  "Let me see it right now. Give me your phone."

"I am not going to give you my phone. I'm getting off here."

He continued to insist, and MIke finally joined in.

"Are you calling her a liar?" he asked.  "Are you?"

"My friend said she took my photo." He pointed to the dude across the aisle to whom he had apparently been talking via phone the entire trip. "Delete it now."

I was raising my voice at this point, and Mike kept gesturing for me to calm down. This went on for some minutes before I said to him,  "Look, I was trying to take a photo of the graffiti." He snorted, and I took out the phone and showed him other photos of graffiti I had taken.  He scrolled through to the last photo and saw that,  I had not taken his photo.  He threw himself into the corner of his seat with a snarl while everyone laughed at him.

"Why would an American woman want your photo?" a gal standing in the aisle laughed.  Everyone joined in, and MIke and I got off.  I noted that the friend climbed over the woman next to him and grabbed my seat before anyone else could  it. 

 

Dumb and Dumber unaware....

 Let me tell you the truth:  I WAS taking a photo of the graffiti from the inside, but I WAS surreptitiously trying to get him in the photo so I could write about what a doofus he was.  Unfortunately, instead of hitting the button to take the photo, I hit the one next to it and didn't get the photo at all.  My bad.

The best part is that when everyone in Modena was waiting to board our coach, I snapped a photo out of the window, and Dumb and Dumber just happened to be in it.  The one who sat next to me is the one in front of the lady in turquoise, and his buddy is the one in the purple shirt standing to her left.

Oops.

Party Time

 "Vivere una vita bella." (Live a beautiful life.)  ~ Italian Proverb

One of the great things about growing up in ethnic-heavy Youngstown, Ohio, was the fact that every summer weekend, some nationality or church was having a festival.  The two I remember most vividly were the events sponsored by the Slovak Sokol Club and the Pacentrano Club.  I can still see the girls and women of the Sokol Club dressed in the traditional costumes (The flower wreaths in their hair were my favorites.) and the fireworks that signaled the end of the Italian festival.

I was quite excited last week when I read that Piacenza, a town about 90 minutes from Bologna, was going to be celebrating the feast of its patron saint, Sant' Antonino this weekend.  The big day was today with a fair, food, music, dancing, and religious processions and such.

 Mike and I got up early and headed to Piacenza first thing this morning. We arrived around 9:15 and walked in the direction of the Pubblico Passegio—a long, public pedestrian walkway. We had brought with us two bottles of water which we'd frozen last night so we'd have cold water with us.  Upon our arrival in Piacenza, we still had more than half of a bottle of ice each,. The temperatures were in the high 80s at that point, and in the 20 minutes it took us to walk to the Passegio, our ice had completely melted.

 We walked along the path and found booths like you would find at a county fair in the States.  There were food vendors, but instead of selling hot dogs, hamburgers, and fried Oreos or Snickers, they all sold sausage and peppers, porchetta, and piadine (a typical sandwich of this area).  Most of the 9,325 booths (Ok.  I'm exaggerating, but it was hot, and I was dizzy.) sold clothing (Mike insists 80% sold women's clothes.), shoes, jewelry, and houseware items. There were booths with pitchmen selling everything from pineapple corers (below) to loctite glue to vegetable choppers to mops to ironing board heat reflectors to heaven-knows-what-else.

 If you know me, you know I love gadgets, so the veggie choppers, citrus sprayers, and pineapple corers caught my attention.  The Chopper Speedy and the other choppers are just more manual vegetable choppers. To me, it appeared they would break the minute you used them to chop anything tougher than a tomato with it.  I keep thinking I need the citrus sprayers and juicers.  How cool is it that you can plug a sprayer into a lemon or lime and spray the juice on your salad? (until, of course, the pulp blocks the thing).

 But the pineapple corer was KING.  Chop off the top of the pineapple, stick the corer in place, and turn the handle.  Out come perfect pineapple slices. What's more, you can use the empty pineapple shell to serve fruit salad!!  HOW COOL IS THAT???

Very cool until I buy one and try to use it myself.  For years I wanted a mandoline for the kitchen. I finally got one, and I've never been able to use the stupid thing correctly. I ended up giving it to a friend who loves to cook, too.  I think he had trouble with it, so maybe it's not me.

 At any rate, who would not want one for only 9 euro (or, if you happened to walk farther into the festival, 8 euro each)?  Apparently not many of us because I don't think I saw any of the pineapple corer salesmen sell one item.

 I did really enjoy seeing booths filled with national products such as olives, lupini beans (above), pickled garlic (not that I would ever buy that), dried fruit, anchovies (not that I would even walk near those).  We ended up buying some brigidini, a small, crisp cookie similar to pizelles.  Where pizelles resemble waffles, brigidini resemble overgrown hosts.

 We walked maybe 60% of the festival before stopping at Sapori di Romagna (second photo from the top) for a  porchetta sandwich.  If you have not had porchetta, you are missing one of the great Italian foods.  Porchetta is basically roast pork. That's it.  (You can find a recipe here, but most Italians do not put all that spice on it.) It is the quintessential Italian street food and is available at most towns on market day.

It was noon when we finished lunch, so we headed back to the train station.  The first part of the ride was relatively calm, but when we hit Modena, the crowds descended on us.  There is a huge music festival (La Notte Rossa) this weekend along the coast, and hoards of teenagers from Modena decided to take our train to get there.  There were so many that they had to stand in the aisles of the coaches as there were not enough seats. 

As you probably remember, I am not good with crowds, and when it is hot and sticky, I'm even worse. And, when the idiot sitting next to me takes out his cell phone and loudly talks nonstop for 35 minutes, my nerves start to fray.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about my verbal scuffle with said idiot.

To Market

Cheeses, hams, and salami from Abruzzo

 "Modena is on the blacklist.  No Modena for Mike!" ~ Chris Cutler

Modena and I do not have the best track record, and I swore to the second group that I was not going back there. Yeh, well, good luck with that.  Mike thought we should go to Modena today since it is a very short train ride and I'd told him the best thing about it was the market.

"What kind of market?" he asked me.

"Food."  The weekend market in Bologna and most other towns around here are more like flea markets than food markets. He didn't want another of those, but food was a good thing.  "It's also a daily, indoor market," I added since the temperature here has hit the 90s, and the humidity is about the same.  He was game.


We found the market quite easily since I'd been there before, and it was as good as I remembered.  The Mercato Albinelli has been around since the 30s and is open Monday-Saturday from 6:30 am until 2:00 or so.  In addition to the fruit and vegetable vendors located throughout the building, there are also vendors who sell fresh pasta, baked goods, meats, fish, cheese, wine, flowers, cooked items, and more.

Formaggio and milk

"Gosh, just walking through here makes me want to grab a peach and eat it," I said to Mike at one point. 

"It would have to be really cold," he replied.  Of course it would. Who likes warm fruit?

Apparently a bunch of people do because I noticed people buying fruit, washing it in the indoor fountains, and eating it right then and there.  (The European habit of eating and drinking somewhat warm foods and beverages is another topic.)

Selling fish

 A number of vendors had amarena (below) for sale.  My favorite gelato is amarena, a vanilla custard laden with amarene and amarena syrup.

"A question," I said to the vendor who was selling the amarena in my photo.  "Are these cherries sweet or tart?"  She looked at me as though I had committed a mortal sin.

"THEY ARE NOT CHERRIES" she snapped at me.

"What are they if not cherries?" I retorted.

"Amarene"  She was now looking at me as though I were the dumbest person on the face of the earth.


"Ok," I continued.  "What do they taste like?" The new look on her face told me that she really did think I was an idiot.

"They taste like amarena."  DUH.

"Ok," I insisted, "are they sweet or tart?"

"They're amarena," she snapped again. "They're tart...Sour." 

Amarena, NOT CHERRIES

"Ok. Excuse me." I exaggerated the pronunciation. Sorry I'm a stupid French tourist. (Another story, but apparently everyone thinks I'm French this year. I don't know if that's a step up or down from British.)

I ended up going to another vendor and buying Ranier cherries, strawberries, and the cuore tomatoes that I love so much.

 Let me point out that amarena are a variety of prunus cerasus (cherry). They are native to the Bologna and Modena area.  The Fabbri Company, founded by the guy who developed the amarena, sells all kinds of amarena products. 

(Side note: After I bought my cherries, I saw a nun purchasing chicken from a vendor nearby.  I went to snap her photo, and she turned from me.  I was quite interested because she had on the entire habit—veil, wimple, bandeau, black belt, scapular, cross, etc.  That's not something that one sees very often anywhere, even in Italy where a lot of sisters still wear a modified habit. 

She must not have been to upset that I tried to take her photo as after she left the chicken butcher, she walked by me , smiled, and said, "Buongiorno.")

Of course, no trip to Modena can end without some kind of mishap. We headed back to the train station, and I somehow walked past the street we were supposed to take to get us back there.

"Let me ask," I told Mike.  Now, I've said this before, but I swear that if Italians have no idea how to get someplace, they'll just give you directions anywhere and hope you find some other sucker to help you figure out there to go.

 "How do we get to Via Ganaceto?" I asked a shop owner.  She told me to turn left on the street we just passed, then right, then left.

We turned left and right and left and ended up somewhere else.  I stopped a lady pushing a baby carriage and asked, "How do we get to Via Ganaceto?" 

"Oh," she exclaimed, "it's a long street." She waved her hands back and forth.  I nodded agreement. "Go down here and turn left and right."

We went "down there," and I stopped. I didn't recognize the area, and I was hot, tired, and upset at being lost in that God-forsaken city again. I looked at the map, saw the street we were on, but at that point, I was mixed up as to where we'd been and where we were exactly on the map.  I saw the palace on the map, and I knew how to get to the station from there, so we just needed to get to the palace.  I walked into a beauty salon.

"How do I get to the ducal palace?" I asked.  The gal in there had no idea, so I showed her the map and pointed to the palace on it.

"OH!" She brought me outside, pointed down a street, told me, "Go down there until the street ends and turn right."  Unbelievably, the one woman who did not know where the honking big palace four blocks from her salon was was the only one who gave me directions that got me back on familiar ground.

 Long story short (at this point), we got to the train station by walking the one way I didn't want to walk—past the location where the guy tried to grab me last year. I did see the store into which I ducked when he was bothering me, but I was too hot and upset to take a photo.

Maybe I'll do that the next time I don't go to Modena.

Venice

Grand Canal in Venezia

  “The sea always filled her with longing, though for what she was never sure.” ― Cornelia Funke

Mike and I went to Venice today.  Actually, we went to Murano and Burano, both islands in the Venetian lagoon. In all, we probably spent about 30 minutes with our feet on Venetian land since we had to take a water bus from the train station to Piazza San Marco to catch another water bus to the islands.  And, we repeated that when we left.

It takes about 20 minutes or so to go to Murano from San Marco, and it takes another 45 minutes or so to get to Burano from Murano. At the end of the day, to get from Burano back to San Marco, it took over an hour.  Add in the time we spent going to and from the train station, and you could say we spent a good three-to-four hours on boats today.

 While we were riding, I was thinking about how much I love being on the water.  I'm not a great swimmer (Long story...almost drowned when I was a toddler...still water shy), so unless my feet can touch the ground, I'm not wild about being "IN" water. That said, I love being on boats most of the time.

Last night, I saw photos that my friends Tim and Maureen Finnerty posted to Facebook about their weekend on the lake, and I thought how cool it was that they do that. Living in the desert, we don't get the chance to go out on the water too often. We could go to Lake Mead, I guess, but, we don't have a boat, and neither do any of our friends out west.

 When we were on the water buses today, I thought again about the lake photos, and then I started thinking about the people who were going by us in their own boats.  What, I wondered, is it like to grow up on water like that?  Is it in your blood all your life?  Do you have to go out on a boat every so often?

My father loved to fish, and I remember going out on a boat with him a few times. I didn't like it at the time though. The worms and the dead fish smelled. The sun was too hot. The dragonflies buzzed around my head and scared the bejesus out of me. I just wanted to go home.  I probably wasn't more than five or six, and I don't think I went out on a boat again until after college.

 At any rate, I looked at all of these boaters today and wondered about their stories. Do they live in Venice? Are they tourists? Were they guests on some big yacht and on a small boat for the day?  (We did see one yacht bring in two speed boats.  Yikers! I wonder how much the yacht cost.)

I also thought about how much I really do like Venice.  I say I don't, but the truth of the matter is that I do like the place itself; I just do not like the people—tourists and residents alike—who ruin it.  Mike even brought it up, and he wasn't too wild about seeing Venice again.

"You know," he said to me as we were heading back to the train station, "we could really spend a week in Venice, stay away from all of the tourist spots, and just go to different museums and islands."  He had to pick me up from the floor of the boat because he shocked me so much, I fainted.

They're European. How do I know?

You know, I might just take him up on that.

A Gentleman in Verona

Juliet's Balcony

"Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charming country in the distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately, balustraded galleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning the fair street, and casting, on the sunlight of today, the shade of fifteen hundred years ago." ~ Charles Dickens

Our plan today was to head to Verona for a few hours and then head to Peschiera del Garda, a town on 15 minutes away by train. Mike hadn't been to Verona before, and I thought he'd enjoy seeing it as it's quite different from most of the other towns we've visited, and Peschiera is a beautiful town on the south shore of Lake Garda. A friend recommended we visit it.

"What's the weather forecast for Verona?" I asked as I was getting ready this morning.

"Well," he hesitated, "it's going to be 91, 94% humidity, and no rain."  I groaned.  No, I whined. We still went.

When we arrived in Verona, the temperature really wasn't too bad. Of course, we walked in the shade most of the way from the train station to the city center, and there was a slight breeze blowing.  I thought that maybe, just maybe, the Weather Channel had it wrong.

The train without shock absorbers

As we walked through Piazza Bra, the main square in town, I saw a tourist train.  Since I wasn't keen on doing another HOHO in Verona this year, I suggested we take it so Mike could get an overview of the place.  Let me give you a little advice:  Take the bus.  Walk. Avoid the train.

I say that simply because I have never been on a more uncomfortable ride in my life.  The streets in Verona are mostly cobblestone, pitted, and very bumpy, and the train has no shocks.  I'm afraid to look at my back tonight for fear I have one big black and blue mark where my spine kept hitting the wooden seat back as we pounded along for almost 30 minutes.

I love the apartment balconies in Verona.

Still, we got to see some things I didn't see when taking the HOHO bus the last few times I was in Verona.  The train, because it's smaller, can get through the more narrow streets, and I love the architecture of the older homes.  So many apartments have balconies, and this time of year, flowers and greenery flow from them.

At different points in history, Verona was actually part of France and part of Austria, but in 1805, Napolean took it back and held it until the Austrians defeated him in 1814 and took Verona back.  In 1866, the city permanently became part of the Kingdom of Italy.

Wurstel pizza

I bring up this history because you can still see the Germanic influence in Verona today.  Note the "wurstel" pizza above. Every restaurant sells some kind of "wurstel" which, if you didn't know, is a kind of Vienna sausage...or hot dog.  (Please note: We did NOT try the wurstel pizza.)  Many of the Veronese have lighter skin, blonder hair, and blue eyes.  In addition, the dialect is quite different from what I'm used to hearing. I had a hard time understanding the Italian in Verona because of how they pronounce many words.  As an example, the number "three" in Italian is "tre," and it's pronounced almost like the word "tray" in English.  A lady who waited on us said our bill was "try euro."  The German word for three is "drei," pronounced  almost like "dry" in English.

The Adige River

 Because of its location in the country, Verona has been important to the differing regimes.  Mussolini had a headquarters here, and the Nazis staged trials and executed Italian officers—including il Duce's son-in-law—on the banks of the Adige River.

One more bit of history, and this one concerns Romeo and Juliet, the star-crossed lovers about whom William Shakespeare wrote.  They didn't exist.  They did exist. They were English. They were Italian. They were Spanish. This much is true: Shakespeare did not write the original literary piece about the two lovers. He based his play on an Italian tale that a British poet translated in 1562 and a piece of prose written by another British writer in 1567.  Yes, Shakespeare "borrowed" heavily from both of those pieces in writing his own play.

The balcony that thousands of tourists visit daily is, indeed, part of a house that belonged to the dell Capella family. While the house itself dates to the 13th century, the balcony is only 95 years old.  I don't want to ruin anyone's visions of what the courtyard looks like, but it is anything but romantic. To get to the balcony, you have to walk through a short alley which is covered, and I do mean covered, with graffiti and love notes.  (Last year, the walls were filled with bandaids on which people had written love notes.  Apparently the city cleaned that up.) The courtyard itself has one wall on which people have stuck chewed gum and written their initials.  Not too romantic.

By the time we had taken the train ride, walked to Juliet's House, and walked through a few streets and alleys, the temperature was on the rise, and we could feel the humidity.

"Maybe we should just have lunch and head back," Mike said.  As much as I wanted to see Lake Garda, I was ready to head back to Bologna.  Heat, humidity, and crowds just do not mix.

Mike tries to lead a tour group.

As we headed to Piazza Bra, we noticed a few tour groups heading our way.  The tour guides were all holding things up so that their particular group could keep track of them.  One held an umbrella, and another held an expandable pointer topped with ribbons. My two favorites were a gal holding a blue water bottle upside down (I swear she had small holes in it so she could sprinkle water on herself.), and a guy waving his hat.

"I wonder if I can get anyone to follow me if I wave my hat around," Mike asked me.

"You should try it," I urged him.  "Let's see what happens."  Never one to shy away, he walked ahead of me a bit, got in front of a group, raised his hat, and started walking towards me.  As I lifted the camera to take the photo (above), everyone stopped about 10 feet behind him to let me take his photo (except, of course, for the guy in the blue shirt who wondered why I was laughing).

"They all stopped to give you room," I told him.

"People just can't follow directions," Mike replied.  "I'll find another group."

One little girl actually paid attention.

 There was one older gentleman walking ahead of us.  "Go in front of that guy," I said to Mike. "You can lead him down the street."  He wasn't too excited about that prospect.

"He's one guy," he replied, "and he's walking with a cane.  What if he hits me with it?"  Mike walked about 20 feet ahead of me.  He walked in front of a crowd of people who were headed my way, took off his hat, and waved them on.  "This way," he said.  I took the photo (above), and noted that only one little girl even noticed him.  "I guess no one wants to go on a tour with me," he added.

"They're probably all German and didn't understand you," I comforted him. 

We arrived at Piazza Bra and had lunch at an outdoor cafe where we could sit and where he could wave to people.