Italy 2004

Italy 2004—Ravenna, Venice, Vicenza, Florence, Rome

Any trip that starts out with sitting at the airport—in the plane—for over three hours has to improve from then on. Some problem with a fuel gauge, inadequately explained, kept us squashed in our middle seats (not even together) for an interminable length of time. Every half-hour, when people had largely ventured out of their seats and were milling around, the pilot would announce that we were almost ready and that everyone should sit and belt in again. So we’d sit, and sit, until half the people got up again. Then there’d be another announcement. Our 6:10 p.m. plane finally took off about 9:30. (What was particularly annoying was that while we were in the airport itself, the overbooked airline had kept begging for volunteers to switch to an alternative route through Paris that would earn the volunteers $400 and would bring them into Rome at 11:00 the next morning. Guess what time we non-volunteers arrived? Minus the $400, of course.) We got “dinner” at about 10:30, and were not even given the chance to buy alcoholic beverages, which we sorely needed by then.

We arrived eventually, picked up our car, and headed for Bagni di Tivoli and our hotel. We got on the autostrada and made the mistake of trusting the map: an earlier exit than the Tivoli one seemed to lead to a minor road that led directly into Bagni. We forgot that they never mark minor roads. After an interesting tour of the countryside we found one that seemed to be right. We actually saw one sign for the hotel, and explored a small town that we assumed was Bagni. I asked two workmen at a café about the hotel; one steered us down the road much further. In retrospect we were surprised that he had heard of it. Eventually we got there, checked in, and asked where we could get a late lunch. The desk clerk suggested that we walk down the side road a couple of blocks and turn right; we would see a new mall in the near distance that would be closed for siesta, but beyond it was a place called, oddly enough, Ducks. We followed his directions, but spotted a lunch place just past the mall without seeing Ducks. Had a panini and beer there, and went back to the hotel for a nap.

Don had tried to reset his watch when we landed and the stem had pulled out. After our nap I saw that mine hadn’t moved since I had reset it. New battery? There had been a little jeweler’s next to the lunch place, so back we went. They installed a new battery for me, but we found after a walk into the town that the watch still didn’t work. The watches in the jeweler’s had been very pricey, so we decided to rest some more at the hotel and go back to the mall when it opened around dinner time—and maybe we could find Ducks for dinner. So we did; the mall had a watch place, and we bought new Casios for both of us. And we had a pizza at Ducks.

Next morning we headed out for the autostrada again. Missed the (inadequately marked) turnoff and ended up on top of the hill in Tivoli. We thought we’d just go through the town and hit the next autostrada ramp on the other side, but we underestimated Tivoli. After wandering its tiny streets for half an hour, unable to find the way out of town on the other side, we finally managed to find the main square again and went back down the hill to the turnoff that we had missed.

The autostrada across Italy is still astonishing: it is either tunnels, including one ten kilometers long, or bridges almost all the way because of the Appenines. It is an amazing feat of engineering. We reached the coast, having picked up lunch at one of the Autogrilles (they are usually quite good, once you figure out the routine of deciding what you want, telling the cashier and paying, and only then telling the counterman what you’re having) and headed north to Ravenna.

We were watching for Sant’Apollinare in Classe and spotted it looming up right beside the road. It has a beautiful 11^th century Romanesque tower, and the building itself is lovely—built in 534 and consecrated in 549. The apse has wonderful mosaics from the fifth and sixth centuries: the Good Shepherd theme with little trees and animals. Vivid color, especially the greens.

And on into Ravenna. It should have been easy to get to the hotel: it is right on the road we were on. But it was one-way the wrong way. Bless them, they had signs pointing to it in a couple of places we wandered, so we found it. Not only that—they have an arrangement that allows you to leave your car right out front with a hotel card on the dashboard. We checked in and went for a walk after a brief rest. We decided just to wander about and to save our real sightseeing for the next day.

The old part of town is almost completely pedestrianized, and it was full of people—mostly locals—all out having the passegiatta in the late afternoon. Vendors lined the streets with an interesting mix of the usual schlock and really beautiful shawls and jewelry. If my carry-on suitcase hadn’t been chock-full I might have succumbed and done some early Christmas shopping. We found the very nice Piazza del Popolo, crowded with a demonstration of some sort, and when we went back through it later it had folk dancing. Busy place. It is really a very nice town, though it is hard to retrieve the sense that it was a mighty place of power in Byzantine times.

We asked the pleasant hotel lady about restaurants, and she aimed us at one back in the area we had been to. It was full, but they said come back in half an hour, so we roamed a bit more and did. Very good dinner.

Next morning we decided to start right next door at Theodoric’s Villa, which we could see from our window. It is in ruins, and there isn’t much, but the guard urged us up the tower stairs with many “pregos” and we found an interesting display of early floor mosaics that they had excavated, presumably on the small site. We told the guard that we liked them, so he had us sign his guest book. He must get points for everybody  he can lure in.

Just beyond that is Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, built by Theodoric in 519, which has the famous processions of martyrs on one side of the nave and virgins on the other, with scenes from the life of Christ above them. They are gorgeous. Unfortunately, the apse has been extended and “baroqued,” which has happened to all too many churches in Italy. Still, as long as you don’t look in that direction the place is great.

We were admiring an espaliered vine on the wall of a house next to the church when its owner emerged and, speaking excellent English, told us it was a poinciana. It was still blooming—yellow flowers—but he told us it had been magnificent a couple of weeks earlier and gave us a couple of seed pods. Too bad we can’t grow it

We took a little detour to the Battistero degli Ariani, also thought to have been built by Theodoric. It has a wonderful dome mosaic of the baptism of Christ, with his body visible through the water—certainly a tour de force in mosaic.

Next, being full of Theodoric (who was an Ostrogoth), we headed to the edge of town to see his mausoleum. On the way we bumped into the Rocca Brancallone, a very well-preserved medieval fort with complete walls, quite extensive. The place has been preserved as a public garden. The drawbridges are still intact and there are interesting explanations posted on all the parts. We had a little sit-down—it was a longish walk.

The mausoleum is very strange. “A curious monument,” says Michelin. It is a circular tower made of huge white stones without mortar, and the low dome, about 36 feet across, is one block of stone. They don’t know how in the world it was erected. You can walk around it on a balcony and go inside on one level. In back of it you could see where they were doing huge excavations, baring some ancient graves, in one of which was a skeleton.

We headed back into town—another long walk, of course—and went to San Vitale, where Don was charmed by the buttress buttressing a buttress. Great age does require help!  It was built in 547 in an octagonal plan, quite magnificent, with aisles around the edges. The apse has wonderful mosaics, but again, the baroquers were at it and the dome is a 16^th-century mess. But the mosaics show the Empress Theodora and the Emperor Justinian and their courts, as well as Christ the King, San Vitale, and the bishop who built the church. We sat for a bit admiring, and a very Cockney lady next to me shook her head and exclaimed “’ow they ‘ad the paytiance!”

Out back is the Tomb of Galla Placidia (she governed the Western Empire before the Ostrogoths invaded), although they now seem to think she never got buried there even though the tombs inside are supposed to be hers and her family’s. Again, magnificent mosaics, particularly some of the connecting patterns, very abstract, on the faces of the arches. Stars, flowers, and repeating patterns.

Lunchtime. There was a place right across the street, so we decided that even though it was probably more expensive than places more off the tourist track, it was worth it to sit down. We were done in.

Our final mosaic fix was the sixth-century Battistero Neoniano. Another Baptism of Christ, plus the twelve apostles and a lot of prophets. Attached to the 18^th-century church next to it is another campanile from the 10^th century. Like every other tower in Ravenna, it leans. Pisa is not alone.

We had our usual gelato, rested our feet for a while at the hotel, and then followed the desk lady’s alternate suggestion from the night before and ate across the street. Quite good, very informal and full of locals.

Next morning we got out of Ravenna with very little difficulty and headed up a two-lane road, absolutely full of big trucks, that parallels the Adriatic. Much traffic, worse the other way. Still, we made good time and much to our surprise got on the causeway to Venice without much difficulty. We had been very nervous, thanks to warnings from guidebooks, about parking just outside Venice, but it was no trouble at all, very well marked, and nice guys pointing to an empty space inside the huge garage. Of course they were shilling like mad for the water taxis. We had intended to take the vaporetto, but after being told “Only 10 euros per person, only 15 minutes. It will take you an hour on the vaporetto,” we followed instructions. Despite all the accommodations for cars, pedestrians are sort of left on their own: we walked out of the garage on the side of the road to a kind of warehouse, turned down a dirt path, and indeed found a water taxi loading up. It got us to San Marco in good time. We were astonished at the huge crowds both on the waterfront and in the Piazza: it looked as if half the population of Asia was there on tours along with much of Europe and America. And it was off-season. We struggled through it, dragging our suitcases.

Then we found difficulty. Our hotel, the Cittá di Milano, didn’t have a street address—just a number and “San Marco,” which is a district, not a street. We had a map from the internet, but it was fuzzy and unclear and didn’t seem to match up with the Venice map I had bought. No turn we took got us anywhere. I asked a couple of waiters at outside cafés; one had never heard of it, but another said second street on the left—seconda strada alla sinistra. The “street” was all of three feet wide, but we followed it as it widened a bit and ended up in a little piazza with a restaurant on each side and a hardware store across the way. I asked the hardware store guy, who was outside, and he pointed to a dank passageway leading through a building on the left. “A sinistra,” he said, and when I still looked a little blank he pointed to the building and said that those windows were the back of the hotel—quello sono le finestre del’hotel. So we thanked him profusely and went, and there, left of the passage, was indeed the door of the hotel inside a little cubbyhole.

Our room wasn’t ready yet, but we were able to leave our bags upstairs in a storage closet and (later) come back and use the bathroom despite the rather surly woman at the desk. A young couple depositing their bags at the same time said “Oh, you were lost too! We saw you earlier!” We spent about 15 minutes making circles in the area so we could be sure we could find the hotel again (Don even left me outside one small church, found the hotel in a different direction, and retrieved me), and then headed in the direction of the Rialto. Couldn’t find any restaurants that weren’t packed with tourists, so we finally bought panini and sodas at a sidewalk stand and ate them on the steps of a handy building—the only one that had steps. Almost all the buildings were flat on the street/sidewalk: I don’t know how they manage with the acqua alta in the winter.

We walked back to San Marco and headed toward the Accademia Bridge at the other end of this district. Crossed over, noted that the museum was closed for siesta, and kept walking. Much less crowded over here in Dorsoduro district, although there were still lots of people. We walked the length of it, to the opposite waterfront on the Canale della Giudecca, which is a big, busy waterway. Noted a few restaurants and decided it might be a good place to eat one night.

Back for a rest and guidebook consultation. We headed out to a restaurant listed in Access Florence and Venice and actually found it, though I was directing us to turn at one corner and Don correctly found it straight ahead. Of course all the waiters were speaking English, but I managed to order in Italian. Excellent meal and wine. Next to us—very much next to us, cheek by jowl—was a nice couple from the midwest, and on the other side after a bit a Beautiful Couple from L.A., who had been cruising on a yacht. We all got very matey from time to time, which is a good thing because we were elbow to elbow. We finished first, and the waiter let us out of the lineup by just picking up our table, empty bottles, glasses and all, and sweeping it out of the way without disturbing a thing. He must have practiced. We explored the very arty neighborhood a bit and found one gallery that had a window full of balloons, or so we thought until we realized they were blown glass. Gorgeous. It was nice to see that some of the glass artisans used their talents for something other than the dreadful schlock on display everywhere.

Next morning we decided we’d better do the very touristy thing and go to the Doge’s Palace and San Marco. Long lines for both. The Palace was a big disappointment: it is so beautiful and Gothic outside and so very Baroque inside. Also we got stuck in a line and had to go across the Bridge of Sighs to see the prisons, very claustrophobic and I wanted very much to get out, but we had to follow the line. San Marco was beautiful; we went up to the museum in the balcony so we could see from above both inside and outside and look at the art that they have removed from wherever it was. The real horses stolen from Constantinople are there too; the ones over the door are reproductions.

We went off to a highly recommended church, Santa Maria dei Miracoli, some distance away and, while we admired its jewel-box exterior with different-colored marbles, we decided it wasn’t worth five or six euros to see the inside. There was a café near it, so we ate lunch there. Walked back toward the main part of town and went to the Rialto Bridge, crossed over, and explored on that side, walking along the Grand Canal for some distance, having our gelato en route. Then we tried the Correr museums at the end of Piazza San Marco, which turned out to be very interesting. Lots of Venetian history—maps, documents, and so on, mixed with some good paintings and all with a fantastic view of the Piazza. We sat on the steps outside when we finished and Don made a sketch of San Marco. A man sitting on my other side was very admiring of his efforts, as well as his speed. “Una mano veloce!” he exclaimed. We had a very friendly conversation, considering that he spoke no English and I only the most rudimentary Italian.

We found a nice restaurant from Access in a square in the general Dorsoduro direction and had what turned out to be our most expensive meal of the trip—though it was good. It was distressing that the euro had gone up so much: two years ago you could simply think of it as a dollar with a discount, but now it took over $1.25 to make a euro. So the whole trip cost more for everything.

Next morning we headed for the Accademia, a must-see. Wonderful Giovanni Bellinis—I’ve always been fond of his things—and the marvelous Giorgone Tempest, which I had forgotten was there. The whole collection was excellent, though Don was disappointed to find no Canalettos. I guess all the paintings of Venice are in other cities. After we finished we thought we’d go see the Peggy Guggenheim collection, but decided when we got there that it was not worth 12 euros each to see a whole roomful of Jackson Pollack. The “Muse of the Surrealists” is not our muse. So we wandered around and had some lunch in a back piazza. Then we sat on the steps of Santa Maria della Salute and watched the Grand Canal for about an hour. Did a couple of sketches and enjoyed just sitting and looking at the beautiful light on the water and buildings.

Don had a dim memory from the 1950s of a church that he would like to see again, but all he remembered about it was that it was right by a canal, which is not much help in Venice. We had tried a couple that weren’t right, so I kept reading and suggested that Sts John and Paul, known as San Zanipolo, might be it. So we tried the vaporetto down the Grand Canal. Boy, we think our public transit is pricey—the trip was five euros each for a relatively short distance, to Ca’ d’Oro. We wandered some and found the church, but it wasn’t the right one. Large and Gothic/baroque, not terrific. Also we discovered that it was within shouting distance of the one we had come to see the day before, which was annoying. But we did more wandering and enjoyed ourselves. Never did find his dream church.

That night we headed back to Dorsoduro to the Canale della Giudecca (the Jews) where we had seen restaurants, and found a very nice one, attached to the hotel that had been Ruskin’s house. I was perfectly happy with my selection until Don let me taste his, which was spectacular. And it was lovely sitting out on the water watching all the boats go by in the dark. Very nice evening.

Don was worried about transportation back to Tronchetto to retrieve the car the next morning, so we walked through Piazza San Marco to the waterfront to see if we could find where the water taxis docked. We couldn’t quite remember exactly where we had gotten off the one we had taken and couldn’t find them, but we did find the station for the right vaporetto and decided that unless a taxi presented itself we’d take that.

So next morning we did, with some trepidation. After a little confusion about where to buy the ticket, we waited and the number five arrived. Lots of people got off, but we were the only ones getting on. It only cost three euros each (different routes have different prices—strange), and it took us straight there. I said to the young woman attendant as she let us off at Tronchetto “Un taxi privato!” and she roared. Again they hadn’t thought much about pedestrians, but we found where to pay and got the car out with no trouble. So off to Vicenza, circling around Padua. I hate to go right by places like that, particularly when they have Giotto frescos, but you can’t do everything.

We had an internet map of Vicenza’s centro, but it has huge industrial surroundings, so we were pretty lost. And of course we found the tourist office and it was closed. A nice man directed to an underground garage, where we got into trouble. Somehow on the second level down Don stuck the ticket in the machine to raise the gate and it ate the ticket. Cars were backing up behind us, and he was getting frantic. Finally a nice attendant who spoke no English at all tried to help, but he couldn’t retrieve the ticket either. I said “momento” and told Don to open the trunk, where I fished around and found my tweezers. That did it, and the guy pulled out the ticket. Luckily a space had opened up just behind where we were stuck, so he directed us into it and then took Don upstairs where he did something arcane and supplied us with another ticket. We never did find out what was wrong or what we had done, and we were worried about getting out the next day. Oh, well.

We followed my map and headed into the center. This time Don thought I was going the wrong way, but I wasn’t. After a little searching we found our very nice hotel, only a block from the big Palladio Basilica. We checked in and went out to wander. Went all around the Basilica, which is basically a slipcover over an old market, and was the meeting place for notables. It has a great clock tower, 12^th century, that is totally unrelated to the architectural marvel, and I confess I liked it better. Michelin says the “great keel-shaped roof” was bombed out during the war, but has been reconstructed.

There was a big market going on in the square, mostly clothes rather than food, so we stopped at an outdoor restaurant for lunch and watched the dismantling of the market—morning only, like Campo di Fiori. We found the tourist office in town open, and got a map of Palladio buildings to follow. First, a long walk down the hill and around to the Teatro Olimpico. Arrived with a group of about five other tourists (I’m sure mostly architects) to discover that the staff had decided to close four hours early and were just shutting their doors. Ah, the vagaries of landmark functionaries. All of us were indignant. I suggested to Don that we could delay our start in the morning and come back, but he wasn’t that interested. So we wandered around the whole center of town finding Palladios. He was certainly a busy man. There were a ton of them. We also stumbled on the cathedral, which was oddly decorated on the façade with various shapes that made it look like it had pink polka dots.

Don was suffering from a cold, so after our gelati we went back to the hotel for a nap. I did a little vocabulary study and when we went back out for a walk and dinner I went into a pharmacy and asked “Ha qualcosa per un raffredore?” The pharmacist said “Si” and asked if there were “febbro.” No, I replied, “solo il naso.” So he sold me a box of pills (that worked like Contac (and turned out to have been made by Pfizer) and told me “uno al giorno e uno alla sera.” I thanked him, paid, and went back to Don, who said “How did you do that?” I felt very smug. We had dinner at the same place we had had lunch, overlooking the Basilica, and watched some flunkies putting candles in each of the balcony openings on the second floor, which looked really spectacular. Then we saw tons of very well-dressed people heading up the stairs into its innards. We asked our waiter what was happening and he said “Una cena grande.” Someone was checking in the guests at the bottom, and some people actually got turned away. We were enthralled.

Next morning we headed back down the hill to the dreaded parking garage, but while Don was maneuvering his suitcase in I got to the machine, discovered that it had little flags for languages, punched English, and followed the very simple instructions about paying. The new ticket worked to get us out, and we were on our way. Of course we were headed due east, and the sun glare made it almost impossible to see the signs, but we eventually got on the autostrada back to circle around Padua again and head south to Florence. We had thought the heavy traffic on the two-lane Ravenna-Venice road might be due to trucks avoiding the tolls, but there were even more trucks on the autostrada. It was packed, and since it narrowed from three lanes to two per side every time we hit a tunnel—and there were a whole lot of tunnels—the traffic was intense. But after we got into the hills and mountains the scenery was wonderful. For the first time we had clouds, and a little rain, which didn’t help with the traffic.

As usual, we got lost heading into Florence. We were coming from the northeast, and our hotel was in the northeast part of the city, but the autostrada headed west of the city and they had changed the name of the first exit. Not helpful, and we missed it. So we got off at the southwest exit and immediately were totally lost. (Not that we wouldn’t have been just as lost if we had gotten off at the west exit. They simply don’t have street signs in the outer limits.) Finally stopped at a gas station, and the helpful guy showed us where we were and told us to turn around to go over the bridge; we got into the centro, went under the train station, and went left around a circle after the fort instead of right as I said. That led us back where we started from; back under the train station again and past the fort. This time we turned right and followed the very convoluted instructions to get to the hotel. We parked illegally and went in; the young man checked us in and told Don how easy it was to find the parking garage they had an arrangement with. We will draw a veil over his attempts to find it. Suffice it to say that it took an hour and I was sure he had had a heart attack in the Florence traffic.

When he finally got back, we set out to find lunch, carrying our umbrellas against the threat of rain. We were only a few blocks from San Marco, so we headed there and found a lunch place on the piazza with a very friendly waiter. As we finished the rain started, so we slogged on in to the centro to see what we could find.

I had wanted to see the Benozzo Gozzoli Procession of the Magi in the Medici-Riccardi Palace last time we were here, but it was closed every time we went by. Today, though the palace was swathed in scaffolding and very much in restauro, it was open, so we got to the chapel and admired the frescos. Don was astonished that the only cooling system in the tiny chapel was an inadequate table fan, which seemed not much in the crowds of people cramming in. We had already been up another flight of stairs to admire a Filippo Lippi Madonna, which was beautifully displayed in its own case, all by itself.

We went back downstairs and, out of curiosity, followed some arrows to two new exhibits that turned out to be great. One, which had a little brochure, displayed a group of paintings they had unearthed during the restoration that were, as the brochure put it, the Medicis’ efforts at PR and “image” before those terms were heard of: they had themselves painted as saints. So-and-so Medici as Saint Catherine, or Saint whoever. There were quite a lot of them. One was a whole group of Medicis grouped around the supposed deathbed of Mary, and they had framed it so you could see all the names listed on the back.

The other exhibit was fantastic. They have digitized the entire Procession of the Magi, and have it displayed very large on two walls of a room. You can stand on a lighted square in front of it, pick your language, and point to certain areas of the painting. These blow up to much larger scale, and a voice tells you who the people depicted are (Medicis, popes, dignitaries who were buddies of the Medici, and so on). We watched and listened while a man did it in Italian; when his group left and we were alone I took his place and had a glorious ten or so minutes pointing at everything and hearing all about it. When you finish one section you point to an arrow and the display shifts to the next section. I turned around after I was done and found that we had collected quite a crowd. It was fabulous.

We wandered a bit more, visiting the Ospedali degli Innocenti and its lovely square, and went back to the hotel for a rest. We decided that we’d go back to our favorite friendly little restaurant just down the street from the hotel we’d stayed in last time: Enzo e Piero’s. So we did and had a wonderful meal. Afterwards we went to the Duomo to see it and the Giotto campanile lighted at night. We got fascinated by the narrative sculpture panels ringing the campanile and went past them one by one, trying to figure out what Biblical scenes they illustrated.

Next day we girded our loins for the big two-part walk in Dick Ihrig’s Eyewitness Florence book. Across the Ponte Vecchio, up into a little square, and up, and up, and up. The walk was headed for a big fort at the top of the hill which affords a great view of the Boboli Gardens. Of course we got there and it was locked, in restauro. The way back followed the old city walls down to a renaissance gate on the river, and then back up and up and up and up again to the church of San Miniato al Monte, which we really wanted to see. We climbed about a hundred steps, went along a path, and then climbed a hundred more steps. Along the way we could see a fenced-off area on the right with tiny doghouse like structures and dishes; finally an explanation appeared on the fence that it was for feral cats. Apparently they keep them housed and fed there, and they respond by keeping down the rodent population.

Finally, panting, we reached the church. Of course nice roads with tour buses ring the site—on this occasion only one bus, but nothing so easy for us. The view from the church terrace is spectacular, over the city in every direction, with mountains in the background. It was worth the climb, though Don collapsed in a pew while I explored the church. It is 11^th-century to 13^th century, and quite lovely, with excellent mosaics. The apse was raised above the level of the church floor, up a flight of stairs on each side. I reached the balcony overlooking it along with a tour group of Americans, who were expressing disappointment that it wasn’t lighted. Having long experience with this, I looked for the little coin box, and there it was on the right-hand wall. One euro to turn on the lights. I searched my pocketbook:  I had two-euro coins and five-euro coins, but no ones, so I hovered near a couple of tourists who were bemoaning the lack of light and told them that if one of them had a euro we could have light. They came up with one; as we were getting ready to insert it their tour leader bustled up and said “Oh, I’ll do it!” I think he was a tad embarrassed that he hadn’t discovered the secret himself. He bore a faint resemblance to a good friend of ours, something that Don noticed too, so we found him recognizable: we ran into them again at dinner that night and then, by golly, behind the Colosseum in Rome, dismounting from their bus as we walked by.

We sat on the walls of the terrace enjoying the view for a while and then headed back down, via the Piazzale di Michelangelo. We were sort of looking for a wine bar that my friend Ditta had recommended for lunch, but I couldn’t remember the name and we didn’t encounter it. But as we wandered, starving, back toward the Ponte Vecchio a waiter saw us pause briefly and swept us into his pizza place with the finesse of a Turkish restaurateur. It was jammed with people, but the friendly staff kept setting up more tables and crowding people in, somehow keeping track of all the orders, so we divided a good pizza and had due birre grande. Very refreshing.

As long as we were Oltrarno, Don wanted to see if they had finished restoring San Spirito, so we walked past the Pitti Palace (which we did not want to see—mostly Baroque stuff) and found it. It was still being worked on. Then I talked him into going further to see the Massacio-Masolino frescos in the Brancacci Chapel of Santa Maria del Carmine. They are still wonderful.

Back across the Arno to Santa Croce: Don just had to see the Pazzi Chapel again. He adores that building. By that time we were more than ready to pick up a gelato on the way back to a much-needed nap. We tried to find a little restaurant listed in our guidebook, but either it was closed or no longer there at all, so we ate down the street from the hotel in a not-very-good restaurant, encountering the tour group again.

We decided we’d set out very early the next morning and see if we could beat the crowds at the Accademia and see David and the other Michelangelo statues. We got in line at 8:15 and were in very quickly—and free. Don’t know why it was free, because when we left later we could see them collecting tickets, but it was a welcome surprise. David was great, of course, all washed clean recently and glowing. I had thought that was all there was to the museum, but to my surprise they had a nice group of early paintings plus two Botticellis. We kept wandering and found another gallery with some nice architectural bits they had found. I lost Don, who tends to dematerialize in museums, and when he finally showed up he took me to his discovery: off a courtyard that I had thought was a dead end he had found a marvelous display of musical instruments —Stradivari and Amati, some very strange early instruments, some paintings of people playing instruments, an early upright piano that looked as if you had taken a narrow grand piano and put the sounding board and strings upright behind the keyboard, and other goodies. I spotted a book about the exhibit on our way out and bought it for my violinist friend and editor Jane.

I still wanted to see the originals of our angels at Trinity Memorial Church, so while Don sat in San Marco square and sketched I went into the San Marco Convent museum. I went into the gallery looking for the Linaiouli (linen-drapers) Tabernacle: after considerable research I had found that our 11-foot angels were copies of tiny ones in the frame of the tabernacle. I couldn’t see it, so I asked a guard “Dové I Linaiouli?” He said it was in restauro, pointing to a blank space on the wall. I registered disappointment, and showed him the picture of the church angels, saying something about la mia chiesa.. He stared at it for a moment, not understanding, and then he exclaimed “Ah, i angeli musichi!” (or something like that—my Italian spelling is not reliable). “Momento!” He ran off and returned with a very attractive woman who spoke excellent English. I told her my mission and showed her the picture. She was enthralled, and after a moment’s thought said that the office would like to know about this, so she led me around the cloister to the office. But the office staff was in a frenzy—probably a grant proposal due this very minute, and tried to brush her off. She asked if I could tour the museum first and come back, but I told her that I had been through the museum last year (actually two years, but I fudged) and had come back only to see the original angels. She thought a moment, then grabbed the picture from me and thrust it under the nose of one woman who was madly sorting papers, gabbling Italian a mile a minute. The woman paused, looked at the pictures, and got very excited. She still couldn’t stop what she was doing, but I told my new friend that they could keep the pictures, so the deed was done. She wrote down our website, so maybe she checked. If I get around to it I’ll get Don to take a color photo of our angels and send it to them. We really should have a connection.

We both wanted to see the Bargello again. And enjoyed it again. (I wanted to see the Uffizi again, but Don balked.) Then we went to the Museo del’Opere del Duomo, and there were the originals of the sculptures we had examined two nights night before, all neatly labeled, so we could see how well we had guessed. Then, since it wasn’t far, we went to Santa Maria Novella for the Ghirlandaio frescos again.

Definitely gelato time. I love gelato in Italy. At home you get one scoop if you ask for a small cone. In Paris you get (in the touristy areas) a thumb-sized cone with a tablespoon of ice cream. In Turkey, if you’re lucky and hit a traditional ice cream stall, they put on a whole show, juggling their huge paddles, ringing the bells hanging overhead, and finally presenting your cone balanced upside-down on the paddle they use for a scoop, only to withdraw it when you reach for it and tease you by offering it to someone else. In Italy, if you ask for a piccolo cono, they start with a normal small cone and then pack ice cream into a five-inch tower, as much as they can possibly fit onto a small cone. Oh, boy, is it good. Don always gets limone. I alternate between pistachio (which I have to remember to pronounce “pistakio”) and straticella (or stracitella), which is chocolate chip.

It was Sunday night, which is the night most of the restaurants close in Florence. We tried one, then another. No luck. Enzo and Piero’s was closed. Finally went into one nearby: Don’s meal was fairly decent, but mine tasted like Kraft macaroni and cheese. Oh, well.

Next morning we said goodbye  to our really nice hotel, the Cimabue, retrieved the car, and set off for Rome. Traffic wasn’t as bad, because the road was straighter, but the ring road to the airport was under construction and was difficult. We got a little mislaid getting gas and getting to the right garage, but managed and took the train into the city. Our hotel, acquired through Orbitz when the one we’d stayed in last time said it was full, was near Santa Maria Maggiore, so we walked there from Termini and found it with no trouble. It was on a little street down a fairly steep hill, and the room was decent, with a view of the courtyard and, mercifully, none of the hideous traffic noise that pervaded the area.

After finding some lunch we went for a walk downhill and explored Trajan’s baths, which we had wandered around before when, on an earlier trip, we had been trying to find Nero’s Golden House, which is under the baths. (We’d finally found the Golden House and toured it when we were there with John and JoAnn.) We found San Pietro in Vincoli, which had actually finished the restoration that had been going on when we’d been there before, and saw Michelangelo’s Moses again. Then a nap.

Finding dinner was difficult. While Sunday was restaurant-closing day in Florence, Monday was it in Rome. The nearby place recommended in Access either wasn’t there at all or was hidden behind the big ugly gates they pull down over everything when they’re closed (mercifully, those have been outlawed in Philadelphia unless they’re grandfathered in). We wandered down a big boulevard to a huge piazza, thinking there’d be places to eat there, but it was not only foodless but had a lot of rather unsavory-looking people. Finally we went back up the street and found a very large basement restaurant that had a row of sidewalk table/booths where we could sit and watch the world. It turned out to be just fine.

Afterwards we walked back down Via Cavour to see the Forum lighted at night, but were flagging and went home to bed without seeing much.

Next morning our aim was the Baths of Caracalla. This was quite a hike: down the hill again to the Colosseum, around it and down several big, traffic-filled boulevards. But the baths were worth it: absolutely enormous and quite exciting to walk through. Don kept getting frustrated because he wanted a plan of the place. It was hard to visualize how these huge spaces had been used, and there didn’t even seem to be a brochure available. But it was great, anyway, and of course we found brochures with plans just as we were leaving.

We headed back up a different way, trying to find a church that was listed in one of the guidebooks: I can’t remember the name, but it is a round church, built in romanesque style. Finally we found its gate down a side street, although the address was on a main street. And of course after all that it was in restauro and closed. Bummer. Down the other side of that hill, and we found a place for lunch near San Clemente.

One more church: back up toward the hotel there was a lovely one on a side street that was very ancient and beautiful, with frescos and mosaics. By this time I suggested that instead of keeping on and having our usual late-aftenoon nap we should go back to the hotel and nap now, then go out refreshed and stay out for dinner. So we did.

By this time we wanted familiarity, so we headed for the Pantheon. Sat on the fountain edge and people-watched for a good long while, not even going into the building itself. Hordes of tour groups kept going in, and we were beginning to think no one ever came out. Had expensive but wonderful gelati at a place right off the piazza: unusual flavors that they make themselves. The young server was very pleased when I tasted and said “Mmmmm!”

Then on to Piazza Navona. We wandered down to the far end and spotted a marvelous “living statue”—a man dressed in a disreputable suit and hat, sprawled on the pavement against a bronze lightpost with a bottle in his hand. He was totally bronzed himself, hat through skin through shoes, lying there absolutely immobile, eyes closed. But every time someone dropped  money in his little bucket, he would hiccup, jerk, and flop back into another position. He was wonderful. We perched on a railing and watched for at least a half-hour. One family pushed a kid in a stroller next to him and took pictures; when they were leaving he opened his eyes slightly for the first time and waggled his fingers at the baby, then subsided again.

We decided to go to Campo di Fiori to eat. We wandered around our old favorite restaurant, not wanting to be the first ones in there but not wanting it to get too crowded either. Finally went in and had a decent meal. It’s a favorite not particularly because the food is really great, but because it’s handy and we’ve been there a lot. We’d thought, after our miles of walking, that we might get a cab when we got as far as Piazza Venezia, but we ended up walking the whole way back. I think we did about eight miles that day.

Next day we decided we’d try the Palazzo Barbarini again, since they’d announced last time we tried that the museum was closed (at 10:00 a.m. on a day when they were supposed to be open). We walked there and found the whole front dug up. A sign said the temporary entrance was around back on Via Barbarini, so there we went. Only by going into a driveway full of parked trucks, around a hedge, and down a very unwelcoming path did we find it. Finally, at the door, they had a sign saying this was the entrance. No wonder there was hardly anybody else there. The person at the desk explained that the ground floor was closed off, as was the first floor, but the painting galleries were open on the second floor, so we labored two flights up the monumental staircase to see. We were underwhelmed: this is supposed to be a major museum and didn’t have much except for a nice exhibit of mostly borrowed Carravaggios as well as people who were influenced by him. They were impressive. And Don finally got to see some Canalettos.

We then headed north. Don wanted to try the Villa Giulia, the Etruscan Museum, again—half of it had been closed the first time we had been there. We went down all the fancy shopping streets past the pricey stores, looking for a place for lunch. Got all the way to the Piazza del Popoli before I saw a rather crowded outdoor place. Don was dubious, but I remembered the bleak walk to and from Villa Giulia before and couldn’t remember any place to eat along it. And I was hungry, so we stopped and had something unmemorable but okay.

Looking at the map it seemed to me that going through the Borghese Gardens to get to Villa Giulia would be nicer than the long, dull Via Flaminia, so we headed uphill. Well, it was a prettier walk, but it was also much longer despite the map. And when we got there half of the museum was still closed. At least they’d had the brains to retrieve the famous married-couple sarcophagus and put it on display, which hadn’t been the case the first time. But otherwise not much new. We walked back, this time down Via Flaminia, and when we got to the Piazza del Popolo Don decided we should essay the subway. We walked almost as far underground as we had walked already, and had major difficulties decoding the machine for buying tickets until a helpful man did it for us. The train started out almost empty, but by the time it reached Termini it was just as packed as it had been when we tried it with John and JoAnn. We fought our way off and headed for the hotel for our nap.

We’d had enough walking, so we tried the little trattoria right across the street, which had been closed on Monday. Went early (the only way to get a seat, we’ve discovered, is to be unfashionable, because the Italians fill restaurants starting at eight) and had a nice light meal. And so to bed, our last night.

Up and out to Termini the next morning, train to the airport, and packed into a plane in the center again for home. At least this time one of us was on the aisle, and the plane was on time.