London wrecked me. Stepping off the plane, I no longer want to live in Italy, least of all Naples. Coming home from England and having to speak Italian for the first time (though we heard plenty of it on the Tube in London), I feel a wave of frustration that wasn’t there before. I don’t want to drive with the crazies. I don’t want the Mediterranean sun. I don’t want the trash or the pastries or the road signs leading to nowhere. I feel myself thinking that it isn’t fair I couldn’t live in England, which has that rich, European history but where we could actually ask someone to explain when we don’t understand something.
Far from being an antidote to culture shock, it heightened it for me. It’s like I’ve been running a race and stopped at a donut shop. When it comes time to start running again, every particle in my body screams against it. No, we’ll stay here, they all say. Let’s run some other time.
But I have to go to work tomorrow. And I have to get someone to fix that awful smell in our bedroom.
Just like I’ve had striking experiences on the road leaving Campania, we seem to always come home to something terrible. From Tuscany, we came home to an alarm we couldn’t shut off. When Julie got home from Rome, I’d left my keys on the inside of the door at 4 a.m. and her key didn’t work from the outside (our friend had to break in). Coming home from London, they were working on the water and we couldn’t get water pressure in any of our faucets. Coming home from Alberobello, we still didn’t have a home yet. The first day back at work from a vacation is always the worst, as well.
Living in Italy, if I haven’t made that clear yet, isn’t remotely like vacationing in Italy.
Napoli is a condensed Italy, an Italy without hospitality, or at least a pre-tourist Italy. Neapolitans are an intense variety of Italian, or perhaps an unconquered breed. Occupied countless times in their 2,700 year history, but never conquered. Individuals have been extremely hospitable and friendly, but as a group they repel the casual tourist. There are very few “touristy” places in Naples. It’s for the varsity team—all others need not bother. There is treasure here, but only a seasoned explorer will find it. It requires more than mere receptivity. You’d hope the next sentence would read “…and rewards more than the more immediately pleasing tourist destinations.” But it’s never that simple. Maybe I’ll be able to say that, eventually. Maybe not. I’m thinking that’s the wrong way to frame it, but I’ll have to let you know. I’ve loved Naples in the past, and there are times I love it still. Will I start the race again? Will I willingly run with the varsity team and dig in to Naples? Yes. Just not for a few more weeks, please.
I apologize for the two-month hiatus. Stick around while I navigate the tricky pathways between wonder and culture shock.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
London, part 2
London in the sunshine is my favorite place on earth. It used to be Paris, and they’ve been close competitors in more than this far longer than my lifetime, but when the sun shines in London, I want to be there.
It’s a city that makes sense in the rain, as well. All of Italy is depressed in the rain. When it rained in Pisa, it felt like we shouldn’t even be there.
But it felt perfectly natural to sit on an open-top bus in the drizzle, drying off seats with our cold butts as we changed from one side of the bus to the other for better views. When we rode the boat from Westminster to the Tower, the huge windows let in the view not only of the city but also a lovely dance of water cascading from the North Sea-drenched skies. Londoners are used to the rain, so it’s business as usual in a downpour and a holiday in the sunlight.
The gardens are the best anywhere. We’re staying just north of Hyde Park, so we spend at least a little time every day in the glorious peace that is a great park in the heart of a great city. It’s a peace that resembles the eye of a hurricane, perhaps, or the momentary break from a thunderstorm when you drive under an overpass. It’s the peace of walking or riding public transportation from your urban rooms to sublime nature. The sun on the fields stretching from Kensington Palace to the water, on a tree from the Hundred Acre Wood and a tree from Middle Earth, on the head of a swan in the waters that will host the 2012 Olympic Triathlon, warms me like little else on earth ever has.
We’re fortunate with the weather. It rains only on the second day, and only hard in the evening, after Aryn finally feels better and we meet up together for a boat ride on the river. When we arrive it’s sunny, when we see the Tower and the Eye it’s sunny, and it’s sunny the day we race through the wrong train station for Stansted airport and then finally through the airport itself to just barely make our plane.
The British Pound is less than a dollar fifty, so we’re fortunate with the exchange rate, too. We were expecting the city to be more expensive than it is, and are pleasantly surprised. It’s like any capital city in that it costs twice as much for everything, but you can find fish and chips or a kebab for three pounds anywhere, and the bus is about a pound one-way. Expecting to have to suck it up and just pay what it costs for the experience, the only “splurge” expense is our hotel room, which is huge by London standards to accommodate all four of us.
We spend most of our full, healthy day (no hint of the sickness remains in our child) at the Tower. The Beefeater tour, which starts as soon as you get inside and is essential (and included in the price of admission), lasts about an hour and a half or so. Aryn falls asleep halfway through. We see where Guy Fawkes was tortured, where Sir Walter Raleigh was held with his wife and kids and two servants, where Anne Boleyn was executed and the church where she was buried. The Beefeaters, guards of the Tower and also its tour guides, live on the grounds with their families and attend this very church of a Sunday. Ours is hilarious, and his is the face on the poster in the gift shop. The crown jewels are incredible, the walk along the walls where you can aim a crossbow at the Tower Bridge (the one you recognize in pictures and probably call the London Bridge) enough to rouse literary ambitions in a stone. But then, this is London, so maybe that’s not all that uncommon.
The London Eye, for so much of its life reviled by Londoners as an eye-sore (much like the Louvre pyramid or the Eiffel Tower), is absolutely worth doing once. If I go again, I won’t bother, but flying that high above the city on such a clear day, our shadow falling on a field of sunbathers and picnickers as we drink in mile after mile of this great city is an experience I can take to the grave. This trip has given me a hundred “now I can die” moments. But I’m not dead yet.
My heart goes out to the Chinese businessman in our little pod on the Eye. He’s traveling alone, taking pictures and enjoying himself but, as I know all too well, traveling alone is dreary. Even sunshine in London doesn’t light a lonely heart. I offer to take his picture, and want to invite him along with us. He could be Alyson’s date. She has two brothers in love with Chinese women, so it’s in her blood. But what would her other two boyfriends she found in London say? The Duke, whom she has vowed to marry for his 12.5 billion pounds, or the poor bagpiper on the Westminster bridge whose heart she broke…
So much else to say, too much else to say. It’s still being said from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Dickens to Waugh and Wodehouse to the writers of today. It’s still being said in more than a dozen strong newspapers and in publishing houses not riddled with the despair of their American counterparts. I’m not done with London. I’ll be back a dozen more times before I die. Someday I’ll tire of London, someday I’ll bid this island farewell and set my longing eyes elsewhere. But I think on that day my eyes will look heavenward, and I’ll see this world no more.
London, part 1
I hope, when Aryn grows up, her earliest memory will be of the time she got to see Peter Pan’s statue in Kensington Gardens.
She’s of the age when those earliest memories are formed, when she’ll be able to look back and distinctly remember certain impressions or images and relive that moment forever. Julie’s is of a trip she took to New York City with her parents when she was Aryn’s age. Mine, about the same age, is seeing Disney on Ice at the old North Star’s stadium (where Ikea and the Mall of America now are). I especially remember the bleacher seats—the grimy concrete underfoot, smeared with gum and other garbage. I remember Mickey jumping out of the birthday cake, but I don’t know if that’s a mixed memory, altered by subsequent Disney on Ice performances and hearing my Grandma talking about it.
But Aryn’s face-to-face encounter with Peter Pan, who plays his flute overlooking the water, buoyed up by fairies, contains all the ingredients of memory. It is anticipated (for her, our trip to London was to go see Peter Pan, Wendy and all the others; and every clock tower she saw since our first, aborted attempt to bring her here has been Big Ben); it’s outside the routine (that is, a vacation or special event); and it is individual (Julie remembers the hotel in NYC having beds her size and getting lost, feeling totally alone, in a strange city; I remember the grimy floor not because someone pointed it out to me but because I laid down on the bleachers and looked, observed, all by myself). Aryn stares and stares at the statue and its vision of Peter atop Neverland. She tries to climb it. She reaches up to grab ahold of Peter’s ankle, tickle his toes, anything—much the same way she may someday reach for some boy band obsession if she scores front-row seats.
She won’t leave him. How could she? How could any child, encountering the deity of Youth? I’ve gladly assumed adult responsibilities, but I grin from ear to ear at the bronze likeness of the Boy who Wouldn’t Grow up. We don’t let her climb it at first, but, in the spirit of Pan, she keeps at it and keeps at it. In the end, who am I to desecrate this holy ground with another arbitrary parental edict? She can’t climb very high, anyways.
I hope, at least, that her earliest memory if London is Peter Pan, and not the projectile vomiting that has hamstrung our Sunday plans. She’s thrown up two, maybe three significant times in her life, but today is not her day. First on the elevator, completely out of the blue. We push fluids and rice crispies at breakfast, but they end up on my shirt and all over the bathroom. And the shower.
So Julie takes the first watch and Alyson and I head out for an open-top, hop on/hop off bus tour. We return for lunch, when I relieve Julie and she sets off to drink in one of the greatest cities in the world. (Alyson, my cousin visiting for a few weeks, gets the best part of this deal, since Aryn is starting to feel better even before Julie heads out the door.)
I am, as I listen to a much-revived little girl sing through her “nap,” completely head-over-heels in love with London. The gardens, the black cabs, the busses, the language (and languages), Speakers’ Corner, the Thames, the history, the literature (our hotel is right next to a Dickens Pub), the royalty, the deep, deep complexity, the feeble British sun shining on the burqa of a wealthy immigrant.
I’ve seen the city center, now. I’ve ridden a double-decker and taken a black cab. I’ve walked, wide-eyed, over the Tames at Westminster and through Hyde Park and Kensingon Gardens. I’ve inched through crowds at Harrods and peeked over the crowds to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham. I’ve had fish n’ chips and cider. In the whirlwind, Eurail way I can say I’ve “done” London. But Samuel Johnson once said, “When a man is tired of London, he tires of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” I’ll likely never be done with this city. And it sounds like our little princess is feeling better, so once I stuff her with a few more crackers and another banana, I think we’ll be off to let her gaze at the golden immensity of Big Ben and maybe take a soggy cruise down the magical river Thames.
Aryn loves to open our window and watch the people stroll by five floors below. Wow, I can’t stop thinking. Wow, we’re in London.
She’s of the age when those earliest memories are formed, when she’ll be able to look back and distinctly remember certain impressions or images and relive that moment forever. Julie’s is of a trip she took to New York City with her parents when she was Aryn’s age. Mine, about the same age, is seeing Disney on Ice at the old North Star’s stadium (where Ikea and the Mall of America now are). I especially remember the bleacher seats—the grimy concrete underfoot, smeared with gum and other garbage. I remember Mickey jumping out of the birthday cake, but I don’t know if that’s a mixed memory, altered by subsequent Disney on Ice performances and hearing my Grandma talking about it.
But Aryn’s face-to-face encounter with Peter Pan, who plays his flute overlooking the water, buoyed up by fairies, contains all the ingredients of memory. It is anticipated (for her, our trip to London was to go see Peter Pan, Wendy and all the others; and every clock tower she saw since our first, aborted attempt to bring her here has been Big Ben); it’s outside the routine (that is, a vacation or special event); and it is individual (Julie remembers the hotel in NYC having beds her size and getting lost, feeling totally alone, in a strange city; I remember the grimy floor not because someone pointed it out to me but because I laid down on the bleachers and looked, observed, all by myself). Aryn stares and stares at the statue and its vision of Peter atop Neverland. She tries to climb it. She reaches up to grab ahold of Peter’s ankle, tickle his toes, anything—much the same way she may someday reach for some boy band obsession if she scores front-row seats.
She won’t leave him. How could she? How could any child, encountering the deity of Youth? I’ve gladly assumed adult responsibilities, but I grin from ear to ear at the bronze likeness of the Boy who Wouldn’t Grow up. We don’t let her climb it at first, but, in the spirit of Pan, she keeps at it and keeps at it. In the end, who am I to desecrate this holy ground with another arbitrary parental edict? She can’t climb very high, anyways.
I hope, at least, that her earliest memory if London is Peter Pan, and not the projectile vomiting that has hamstrung our Sunday plans. She’s thrown up two, maybe three significant times in her life, but today is not her day. First on the elevator, completely out of the blue. We push fluids and rice crispies at breakfast, but they end up on my shirt and all over the bathroom. And the shower.
So Julie takes the first watch and Alyson and I head out for an open-top, hop on/hop off bus tour. We return for lunch, when I relieve Julie and she sets off to drink in one of the greatest cities in the world. (Alyson, my cousin visiting for a few weeks, gets the best part of this deal, since Aryn is starting to feel better even before Julie heads out the door.)
I am, as I listen to a much-revived little girl sing through her “nap,” completely head-over-heels in love with London. The gardens, the black cabs, the busses, the language (and languages), Speakers’ Corner, the Thames, the history, the literature (our hotel is right next to a Dickens Pub), the royalty, the deep, deep complexity, the feeble British sun shining on the burqa of a wealthy immigrant.
I’ve seen the city center, now. I’ve ridden a double-decker and taken a black cab. I’ve walked, wide-eyed, over the Tames at Westminster and through Hyde Park and Kensingon Gardens. I’ve inched through crowds at Harrods and peeked over the crowds to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham. I’ve had fish n’ chips and cider. In the whirlwind, Eurail way I can say I’ve “done” London. But Samuel Johnson once said, “When a man is tired of London, he tires of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” I’ll likely never be done with this city. And it sounds like our little princess is feeling better, so once I stuff her with a few more crackers and another banana, I think we’ll be off to let her gaze at the golden immensity of Big Ben and maybe take a soggy cruise down the magical river Thames.
Aryn loves to open our window and watch the people stroll by five floors below. Wow, I can’t stop thinking. Wow, we’re in London.
Toscana--our trip April 21-24
So the volcano ruined out London trip. Bitterly disappointed, we have to explain to Aryn that because a big cloud is over London, the planes can’t fly there and we’ll have to go see Peter Pan later.
“A big cloud?” she asks, with a three-year-old’s comprehension. “A big Captain Hook cloud is naughty and we can’t go to London and see John and Wendy and Peter Pan and Tinkerbell?”
“Right.” Plus or minus.
So plan B. I have the days off, so… what? Lake Como? Venice? Sicily? I start to make plans.
“I think we should go to Florence,” Julie says when I get home from work. “You’ve been wanting to buy a leather bag, and I want to go see Lucca,” another Tuscan town. And Pisa, and Montepulciano, because that’s where they filmed part of Twilight: New Moon.
Yes. We’ll go see the Twilight town.
Lucca, birthplace of Puccini, is still surrounded by a giant wall. Our B&B, Centro Storico, lends us bikes (“Si, my bike has baby seat”) and we ride atop the wall. Before our first revolution (you can ride around the whole of the old city on the wall), we resolve to buy a bike for Julie and a baby seat for Aryn. After our second revolution, after a few stops for Aryn to play on a few public playgrounds, we’re no longer bitter we can’t be in London. We love this town, and our lovely B&B has conquered Julie’s aversion to cappuccino and converted her to coffee. She now enjoys a cup many mornings.
The train from Lucca to Florence takes about an hour and a half. They say the bus is faster, but we don’t listen. We decide to climb Giotto’s Tower, because it’s Firenze and the view is worth every drop of sweat. Of course, we shrug, we can carry Aryn when she gets tired.
She never does. Climbing past kids twice her age, leaving them in her dust, she hoofs it up the tower like a champ. We barely keep up. Three-fourths of the way up, they display a giant bell. She runs over to it and starts trying to lift it up, though it’s got to outweigh her by an order of 100.
And that’s when the working bells start chiming noon.
I wouldn’t recommend climbing the tower at noon. But, if you find yourself about three meters from the bells when they start to ring the time out across the Tuscan hills, the narrow stairway, encased in stone, offers a tiny bit more protection than the open air.
From the top I can see the city, practically bleeding art. I see the hills Mona Lisa smiles above, I see the river, I see Firenze and the near reaches of Toscana. I see the descendents of the white Guelfs, Dante’s clan, who will later sell me a leather shoulder bag.
Speaking of leather shoulder bags, I’m glad I’m not a Chinese tourist. Even the innocent ones are thrown out of the leather shops as spies. Ah, the world of fashion.
It’s raining when we go to Pisa. It’s raining AND there’s a train strike, which I thought had been cancelled due to the grounding of every flight in Europe. So after taking a cab to the train station, we take one back to the B&B and hop in the car. We fight the crowds, we take a picture, we leave. The cathedral, whose bells the Leaning Tower carries, is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.
Montepulciano, which my guidebook mentions as popular with wine lovers, turns out to be the best detour ever. Expecting to simply drive to the centro, take an emo picture holding our copy of New Moon (yes, we packed it for the photo op), and continue home, our mouths drop at the beauty gleaming from this Tuscan hilltop. We stroll through the narrow, pedestrian-only streets. Actually, we climb the streets. All roads lead up in this town centered on the top of a hill. Winding around and around, we can’t keep up with every narrow archway begging us to detour, every little stairway leading somewhere else, somewhere amazing. Every narrow lane we take is a win, every detour a new discovery for us as we hike the steep streets to the piazza from the movie.
“A big cloud?” she asks, with a three-year-old’s comprehension. “A big Captain Hook cloud is naughty and we can’t go to London and see John and Wendy and Peter Pan and Tinkerbell?”
“Right.” Plus or minus.
So plan B. I have the days off, so… what? Lake Como? Venice? Sicily? I start to make plans.
“I think we should go to Florence,” Julie says when I get home from work. “You’ve been wanting to buy a leather bag, and I want to go see Lucca,” another Tuscan town. And Pisa, and Montepulciano, because that’s where they filmed part of Twilight: New Moon.
Yes. We’ll go see the Twilight town.
Lucca, birthplace of Puccini, is still surrounded by a giant wall. Our B&B, Centro Storico, lends us bikes (“Si, my bike has baby seat”) and we ride atop the wall. Before our first revolution (you can ride around the whole of the old city on the wall), we resolve to buy a bike for Julie and a baby seat for Aryn. After our second revolution, after a few stops for Aryn to play on a few public playgrounds, we’re no longer bitter we can’t be in London. We love this town, and our lovely B&B has conquered Julie’s aversion to cappuccino and converted her to coffee. She now enjoys a cup many mornings.
The train from Lucca to Florence takes about an hour and a half. They say the bus is faster, but we don’t listen. We decide to climb Giotto’s Tower, because it’s Firenze and the view is worth every drop of sweat. Of course, we shrug, we can carry Aryn when she gets tired.
She never does. Climbing past kids twice her age, leaving them in her dust, she hoofs it up the tower like a champ. We barely keep up. Three-fourths of the way up, they display a giant bell. She runs over to it and starts trying to lift it up, though it’s got to outweigh her by an order of 100.
And that’s when the working bells start chiming noon.
I wouldn’t recommend climbing the tower at noon. But, if you find yourself about three meters from the bells when they start to ring the time out across the Tuscan hills, the narrow stairway, encased in stone, offers a tiny bit more protection than the open air.
From the top I can see the city, practically bleeding art. I see the hills Mona Lisa smiles above, I see the river, I see Firenze and the near reaches of Toscana. I see the descendents of the white Guelfs, Dante’s clan, who will later sell me a leather shoulder bag.
Speaking of leather shoulder bags, I’m glad I’m not a Chinese tourist. Even the innocent ones are thrown out of the leather shops as spies. Ah, the world of fashion.
It’s raining when we go to Pisa. It’s raining AND there’s a train strike, which I thought had been cancelled due to the grounding of every flight in Europe. So after taking a cab to the train station, we take one back to the B&B and hop in the car. We fight the crowds, we take a picture, we leave. The cathedral, whose bells the Leaning Tower carries, is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.
Montepulciano, which my guidebook mentions as popular with wine lovers, turns out to be the best detour ever. Expecting to simply drive to the centro, take an emo picture holding our copy of New Moon (yes, we packed it for the photo op), and continue home, our mouths drop at the beauty gleaming from this Tuscan hilltop. We stroll through the narrow, pedestrian-only streets. Actually, we climb the streets. All roads lead up in this town centered on the top of a hill. Winding around and around, we can’t keep up with every narrow archway begging us to detour, every little stairway leading somewhere else, somewhere amazing. Every narrow lane we take is a win, every detour a new discovery for us as we hike the steep streets to the piazza from the movie.
Friday, April 2, 2010
But you live in Italy, so you're always on vacation, right?
Sorry it’s been so long. We’ve moved into our house. We’re figuring everything out. Yes, we have to figure EVERYTHING out. We had to learn how to open the front door, plug in 220V plugs that don’t fit in our 220V outlets, reset the water heater after every two minutes of shower. We had to learn how to turn on the gas (or else we’ll freeze to death even when it’s 70 degrees outside), close every shutter before leaving or going to bed (or else they’ll break in and steal everything), open every window at least once a day (or else there’s mold), and buzz in guests with that phone-looking thing.
Living in Italy does NOT equal vacationing in Italy. We are not on vacation. In a few weeks we go to London. That’s vacation. We went to Bari two weekends ago. That’s vacation. It takes a week for a technician to cross the street from his construction site to tell us our water heater isn’t broken. That’s culture shock. Be envious if you like, but great heights are always accompanied by depths. So it may be a little while again…
Living in Italy does NOT equal vacationing in Italy. We are not on vacation. In a few weeks we go to London. That’s vacation. We went to Bari two weekends ago. That’s vacation. It takes a week for a technician to cross the street from his construction site to tell us our water heater isn’t broken. That’s culture shock. Be envious if you like, but great heights are always accompanied by depths. So it may be a little while again…
Bari Safari and Alberobello
I’ve had two almost identical experiences now, both driving out of Campania and into the neighboring region.
Campania, the region with Naples and the Amalfi Coast, Caserta and Benevento, has embarrassed Italy recently with corruption scandals, mafia misdeeds including the illegal dumping of tons of poisonous waste in the countryside where my local produce grows, and a periodic inability to pick up trash.
So Naples and the surrounding area are dirty. It’s something I’ve gotten used to, like the driving, but a few weeks ago when I was driving up to the resort town of Gaeta, in Lazio (Rome’s) region, Campania was in the middle of another trash strike. Garbage lined the streets, piled high in recycling centers and dumpsters, and spilled out into the road of every town I drove through. Then I came over a hill and the mountains rose in front of me, a small town at the apex of a hill in front of them perfectly nestling beneath the grand peaks above, birds flying through the air and a blue, blue sky like a postcard. We passed a sign saying I was leaving Campania and entering Lazio. I laughed aloud.
Driving to the Bari safari for Aryn’s birthday weekend gives me a similar jolt. Actually, leaving Naples and climbing into the mountains leaves the trash behind (the trash strike is over, so just the roadside litter), and we curve around and around on the mountain freeway and enjoy delicious views of Benevento and the surrounding areas. Then a sign announces we’re leaving Campania, which puts us about in the middle of the ankle of the boot, and green opens up before us. Farmland, lush and green, ordered and divided and thick, spreads as far as the eye can see. A shocking transition from mountains to plains at the border.
We’re on our way to the Bari Zoosafari. It’s in the Puglia region, which stretches from the point of the high heel up to about the Achilles tendon. I’m excited to see the Adriatic. Aryn is singing in the backseat, “we’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you?” Julie wonders if one package of carrots is going to be enough. We didn’t realize the zoo closes at 4 until about 9 today, so a leisurely morning quickly became rushed as we hurried to get on the road in time to feed the giraffes.
We do. The drive is easy and fast, the tollway smooth. The animals live in their pens with a stunning view of the sea. I imagine I can see Albania. We roll down the windows as a herd of goats trots over to say hello and Aryn climbs into the front seat.
How amazing to feed a giraffe! The animals are certainly not shy about sticking their heads in and rooting around for something to eat. We run out of carrots halfway through and a camel, not realizing we have nothing for him, chases us for what seems like a mile. Aryn can’t decide whether to be terrified or ecstatic. It’s incredible. Go, if you’re ever within a few hundred miles of Bari and have children. Or even if you don’t. I could have reached out and touched a tiger, if I’d been crazy enough to roll down my windows in their pen. Julie snaps a photo of the bear cubs playing in a tree and they all look up at her. We almost catch two lionesses brawling on camera. Aryn turns the wheel and giggles with glee. We ride a train through a shrieking bevy of monkeys who swarm our train car like giant tarantulas. One is able to stick his whole hand in the door, and a thousand horror films flash before my eyes.
Still breathless from being so up close and personal with yaks, dromedaries, elephants, zebras, bison and other creatures from diverse climates and continents, we drive to Alberobello.
Alberobello was built to not exist. The distinctive Trulli huts, architecture unique to the area and now a UNESCO World Heritage site, were fashioned using all dry building materials so they could be disassembled before a tax inspection. Taxes were levied based on the number of dwellings, and therefore the entire town would disappear when the inspectors came around. The Trulli huts have domed roofs and were modular in nature, allowing any arrangement from a single-room dwelling to many connect pods forming an elaborate and spacious mansion. Decorations adorn many of the stone roofs, with various crosses, images of the sun or moon, and symbols designed to ward off the evil eye. The reasons for visiting this charming town are numerous, but it’s hard to think of a reason why anyone today would want to deny it exists.
“We have a church here, a museum here,” the bored hotel clerk tells me. “The Trulli huts are here and here. And that’s it.”
“Is there public transportation?”
“You don’t need it. It’s not a large town.” He seems eager to get out of here. Whether to join his friends outside for a cigarette or to head north for a job and a bright future I can’t tell. “Passport, please.”
I give it to him.
“Can I give it back to you later?”
I shrug. We already have our keys and have moved into the room, and he still hasn’t asked for my credit card. I won’t end up producing it until checkout.
He smiles and hurries outside, leaping back into the conversation mid-laugh.
We’re staying in a hotel arranged by my colleague, Teresa Merola, whose husband knows the owner and who hooked us up with the large room on the top floor. We have a fine view of the town from the balcony, which is actually the roof of the hotel. We are above the main piazza, and I think there’s some kind of political rally going on. We can’t quite tell, because travelling with a toddler means turning in early. Aryn goes to bed angry she doesn’t have enough toys and Julie and I retreat to the bathroom before sneaking into our beds and falling into a sleep we hope won’t disturb our little princess. It does. She sleeps light. We wake up lots. I drink coffee in the morning. Julie drinks tea. Aryn eats yogurt and makes friends with an Italian boy. A father and son speak German. Otherwise the hotel breakfast room is empty.
We love this town. Julie spots a café that I could come to twice a day for the rest of my life. They love Aryn. I try to follow the long article they pasted on the wall—a feature on their café for a German travel magazine. My German is bad, but this hot chocolate is what I want to drink before my execution. I’d drive all the way back here for this café.
It is Aryn’s birthday weekend, and she’s tired of walking through the huts. I think it’s the hedgehog that’s supposed to protect you from the evil eye. Or is it the rooster? Not sure. The evil eye crops up a lot in Mediterranean culture. I’ll keep an eye out for it. Ha ha. We don’t buy a rooster or a hedgehog, but we do let her pick out a doll. She’s pretty much potty trained now, but only just, so every time she announces her need for a potty we still drop everything and race to the nearest one. We do that walking up one street (have to buy an acqua naturale so we’d be paying customers), after which we congratulate ourselves that we’ve effectively potty trained our child. Hurrah. Now, doll in hand, Aryn is stopping at every doorstep because her doll has to go potty. We’d like to move on, but it’s just so cute we can’t rush her. She names the doll Emily.
Driving home (that is, back to the hotel we’ll end up spending 71 days in), the beauty of southern Italy washes over us. Windmills, the giant new ones built to harness sustainable energy and free Italy from energy dependence on France, loom on the horizon. They enhance, not detract from, the vista. I think Italy is second in the EU for solar power, behind only Germany. That’s actually really funny, given their respective climates, but one can’t judge too harshly. I smile, but not as sultans smile, because human progress this time is literally in the form of giant windmills waving their giant arms over a wide plain. Relax, Don Quixote. There are other, better quests.
Patches of red-brown clay dot the sea of green fields. Castles atop the hills, some restored but most in ruins, peer out over the plains. I imagine the centuries of forgotten prince Yurtles, lords over all they could see, survived for centuries by moldering heaps of once-grand rock.
Campania, the region with Naples and the Amalfi Coast, Caserta and Benevento, has embarrassed Italy recently with corruption scandals, mafia misdeeds including the illegal dumping of tons of poisonous waste in the countryside where my local produce grows, and a periodic inability to pick up trash.
So Naples and the surrounding area are dirty. It’s something I’ve gotten used to, like the driving, but a few weeks ago when I was driving up to the resort town of Gaeta, in Lazio (Rome’s) region, Campania was in the middle of another trash strike. Garbage lined the streets, piled high in recycling centers and dumpsters, and spilled out into the road of every town I drove through. Then I came over a hill and the mountains rose in front of me, a small town at the apex of a hill in front of them perfectly nestling beneath the grand peaks above, birds flying through the air and a blue, blue sky like a postcard. We passed a sign saying I was leaving Campania and entering Lazio. I laughed aloud.
Driving to the Bari safari for Aryn’s birthday weekend gives me a similar jolt. Actually, leaving Naples and climbing into the mountains leaves the trash behind (the trash strike is over, so just the roadside litter), and we curve around and around on the mountain freeway and enjoy delicious views of Benevento and the surrounding areas. Then a sign announces we’re leaving Campania, which puts us about in the middle of the ankle of the boot, and green opens up before us. Farmland, lush and green, ordered and divided and thick, spreads as far as the eye can see. A shocking transition from mountains to plains at the border.
We’re on our way to the Bari Zoosafari. It’s in the Puglia region, which stretches from the point of the high heel up to about the Achilles tendon. I’m excited to see the Adriatic. Aryn is singing in the backseat, “we’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you?” Julie wonders if one package of carrots is going to be enough. We didn’t realize the zoo closes at 4 until about 9 today, so a leisurely morning quickly became rushed as we hurried to get on the road in time to feed the giraffes.
We do. The drive is easy and fast, the tollway smooth. The animals live in their pens with a stunning view of the sea. I imagine I can see Albania. We roll down the windows as a herd of goats trots over to say hello and Aryn climbs into the front seat.
How amazing to feed a giraffe! The animals are certainly not shy about sticking their heads in and rooting around for something to eat. We run out of carrots halfway through and a camel, not realizing we have nothing for him, chases us for what seems like a mile. Aryn can’t decide whether to be terrified or ecstatic. It’s incredible. Go, if you’re ever within a few hundred miles of Bari and have children. Or even if you don’t. I could have reached out and touched a tiger, if I’d been crazy enough to roll down my windows in their pen. Julie snaps a photo of the bear cubs playing in a tree and they all look up at her. We almost catch two lionesses brawling on camera. Aryn turns the wheel and giggles with glee. We ride a train through a shrieking bevy of monkeys who swarm our train car like giant tarantulas. One is able to stick his whole hand in the door, and a thousand horror films flash before my eyes.
Still breathless from being so up close and personal with yaks, dromedaries, elephants, zebras, bison and other creatures from diverse climates and continents, we drive to Alberobello.
Alberobello was built to not exist. The distinctive Trulli huts, architecture unique to the area and now a UNESCO World Heritage site, were fashioned using all dry building materials so they could be disassembled before a tax inspection. Taxes were levied based on the number of dwellings, and therefore the entire town would disappear when the inspectors came around. The Trulli huts have domed roofs and were modular in nature, allowing any arrangement from a single-room dwelling to many connect pods forming an elaborate and spacious mansion. Decorations adorn many of the stone roofs, with various crosses, images of the sun or moon, and symbols designed to ward off the evil eye. The reasons for visiting this charming town are numerous, but it’s hard to think of a reason why anyone today would want to deny it exists.
“We have a church here, a museum here,” the bored hotel clerk tells me. “The Trulli huts are here and here. And that’s it.”
“Is there public transportation?”
“You don’t need it. It’s not a large town.” He seems eager to get out of here. Whether to join his friends outside for a cigarette or to head north for a job and a bright future I can’t tell. “Passport, please.”
I give it to him.
“Can I give it back to you later?”
I shrug. We already have our keys and have moved into the room, and he still hasn’t asked for my credit card. I won’t end up producing it until checkout.
He smiles and hurries outside, leaping back into the conversation mid-laugh.
We’re staying in a hotel arranged by my colleague, Teresa Merola, whose husband knows the owner and who hooked us up with the large room on the top floor. We have a fine view of the town from the balcony, which is actually the roof of the hotel. We are above the main piazza, and I think there’s some kind of political rally going on. We can’t quite tell, because travelling with a toddler means turning in early. Aryn goes to bed angry she doesn’t have enough toys and Julie and I retreat to the bathroom before sneaking into our beds and falling into a sleep we hope won’t disturb our little princess. It does. She sleeps light. We wake up lots. I drink coffee in the morning. Julie drinks tea. Aryn eats yogurt and makes friends with an Italian boy. A father and son speak German. Otherwise the hotel breakfast room is empty.
We love this town. Julie spots a café that I could come to twice a day for the rest of my life. They love Aryn. I try to follow the long article they pasted on the wall—a feature on their café for a German travel magazine. My German is bad, but this hot chocolate is what I want to drink before my execution. I’d drive all the way back here for this café.
It is Aryn’s birthday weekend, and she’s tired of walking through the huts. I think it’s the hedgehog that’s supposed to protect you from the evil eye. Or is it the rooster? Not sure. The evil eye crops up a lot in Mediterranean culture. I’ll keep an eye out for it. Ha ha. We don’t buy a rooster or a hedgehog, but we do let her pick out a doll. She’s pretty much potty trained now, but only just, so every time she announces her need for a potty we still drop everything and race to the nearest one. We do that walking up one street (have to buy an acqua naturale so we’d be paying customers), after which we congratulate ourselves that we’ve effectively potty trained our child. Hurrah. Now, doll in hand, Aryn is stopping at every doorstep because her doll has to go potty. We’d like to move on, but it’s just so cute we can’t rush her. She names the doll Emily.
Driving home (that is, back to the hotel we’ll end up spending 71 days in), the beauty of southern Italy washes over us. Windmills, the giant new ones built to harness sustainable energy and free Italy from energy dependence on France, loom on the horizon. They enhance, not detract from, the vista. I think Italy is second in the EU for solar power, behind only Germany. That’s actually really funny, given their respective climates, but one can’t judge too harshly. I smile, but not as sultans smile, because human progress this time is literally in the form of giant windmills waving their giant arms over a wide plain. Relax, Don Quixote. There are other, better quests.
Patches of red-brown clay dot the sea of green fields. Castles atop the hills, some restored but most in ruins, peer out over the plains. I imagine the centuries of forgotten prince Yurtles, lords over all they could see, survived for centuries by moldering heaps of once-grand rock.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sorrento
We told everyone we were going to the Amalfi coast this weekend, which turns out to actually be untrue. In the Sorrentine Peninsula, whose mountains jut out to form the southern half of the Bay of Naples, there are two coasts—one faces north towards the city and the volcano, the other south and the sun. The Amalfi coast, that famous playground of European vacationers and the international wealthy, is the southern coast. The towns on that coast include Ravello, Positano (as seen in Under the Tuscan Sun and other movies, like maybe Nine which I haven’t seen as well as the cover of my Naples guide book) and, of course, Amalfi. Sorrento, namesake of the peninsula and the giant lemons that grow there, faces north.
The drive is easy and fairly short from our hotel, though we have a minor wrong turn and the traffic getting into Vico Equense, the first town along the coastal drive, is slow for a while. Apparently the University of Pizza, selling pizza a metro, which had almost as many signs along the way as Wall Drug, is totally awesome. After a traffic circle around a very new-looking fountain in the middle of that town, however, it’s as if everyone vanishes miraculously. We park in a nearly-empty lot in the center of Sorrento and walk out into streets seemingly free of pedestrians and almost free of mopeds.
We debate for a few minutes whether the first town is a local favorite, or if it’s so popular simply because it is the first town. Laziness can play a huge role in leisure, I think. Which is why we stop at the first gelato shop we see. Pictures occupy every available piece of real estate on the walls
This is a very European beach town. We peruse the shops on cobblestone streets open only to pedestrians and the odd moped. Julie buys a sweater for Aryn, because it’s colder in the shade after gelato than we figured.
“I wonder how many Italians dress their kids in a sweatshirt that says ‘Italia,’” Julie says.
I laugh and point at a sign that says, in English, “The best cappuccino in town.”
Everyone speaks English here, which takes some of the challenge out of it for me but certainly adds to the place’s convenience. It’s okay to be a tourist.
Especially because today we are practically the only tourists. We stop at a church with a Presepe, or nativity scene, and Aryn’s voice echoes among the empty pews. We step down a narrow walkway, off the map in search of adventure, and the only sound is a lawnmower and some laundry flapping in the breeze.
Ah, the smell of cut grass and laundry drying in the sun--the perfect way to start any adventure.
There’s a lot at stake when you set off on an adventure with a toddler. With adults only, the worst that can happen from a wrong turn is a little backtracking, maybe some annoyance, maybe ending up in a bad area and encountering some seedy pimp trying to push his wares on you. With a kid, you have to think about her mood—if we wander too far and don’t find something amazing, will she be able to walk back? Will she be so mad she won’t walk back and squirm while you carry her? Can you carry her the whole way? What if she gets hurt? And you have to think long and hard before venturing into any area that looks remotely sketchy. At least the pimp is more likely to leave us alone if she’s with us.
But she is as good as gold and better. The sound of mopeds whizzing by at a hundred miles an hour bother her, and she stops to squeeze her hands over her ears every time. She loves the long stairway down to Marina Grande. Her singing echoes off the walls and through the windows. A grandma looks down and grins from ear to ear.
We peer down the street, nets under the olive trees hanging over the road. A classic low door moment:
“Where is this leading?” Julie asks.
“I think the waterfront,” I answer, remembering the brown sign that usually indicates something worth seeing.
“Well, hopefully we get there soon,” she replies, likely thinking of everything I mentioned above.
I’m thinking of that too when we round a corner, then another corner beneath a shrine to Santa Maria and see a small archway, sunlight from the waves glittering off the walls. We emerge into the light, the Marina Grande gleaming in the full, sun-drenched languor of an ancient morning. Fishermen spool and mend their nets. A man saws boards outside a restaurant as his friend rolls through the narrow cobblestone blaring his car stereo. No tourists but us. Three youths kick a soccer ball in the tiny lot. Aryn wants to join them.
She runs up the steps from where we gaze at the marina, greeting an elderly couple who smile down at her. She turns and grins down at us, the magic and the beauty of the scene reflected in her exuberant smile.
We can see Naples spread like a skirt about the knees of il Vesuvio. I can almost hear the din across the bay—it’s enough to make this sunny silence something more. Not the absence of sound, but removal from it, as if from a great height. I, the hangglider, the soaring eagle, look down on a honking, teeming traffic jam, too high to hear anything but the wind and the small waves breaking on a black sand beach.
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