Southern Italy - 1998

 Southern Italy - 1998

The trip did not begin auspiciously.

As soon as we got in line at the airport, a handle on our bag, full of guidebooks, maps, and oddments, broke. It is a leather shopping bag, open at the top, and is un-carryable without both of its handles. Don tried to tie the strap enough to get it on the plane, and sometimes succeeded just long enough to walk about fifty feet with it. At least it was the only thing we had to carry onto the plane beside my purse, so he could clutch it to his bosom the rest of the time.

On the plane I drank most of the first glassful of Bloody Mary and then knocked over the rest when the person in front of me shoved back his seat. Fortunately, most of the dregs went down between our seats. I refilled from the bottle and can, and then Don knocked it over again. This time it went all over both of us and into the leather bag. Of course these were the clothes we were planning to wear for the next three weeks.

I had, per doctor’s advice, used Neo-Synephrin before takeoff to help relieve pressure from my unidentified allergy, but it didn’t do any good. I tried saline solution. Then, in desperation, I used a twelve-hour nasal spray. Nothing. My head felt like a solid block of wood, which made me feel very claustrophobic, which made me extremely jittery. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sit. I paced, all night. Up and down the cabin, getting drinks of water as an excuse, and finally standing back in the flight attendants’ doorway, where I tried to keep out of their way and watched the all-night television without sound for six hours. About an hour before we landed I finally managed to sit down with Don for a little while without jumping out of my skin. I managed to down a little breakfast, but couldn’t finish it.

“If this is the way I’m going to feel on every flight from now on, it is going to put a severe crimp in our travel plans,” I told Don.

“If this is the way you’re going to feel for the next three weeks we might as well turn around and go home,” he answered.

Anne van Merkensteijn was waiting at the airport, after the Italian powers had decided that people with American and Australian passports did not offer a serious terrorist threat and took us out of the endless line to go through the Euro gate. She threaded expertly through the airport maze and negotiated the traffic of Rome without turning a hair. She even managed to plead excess luggage to a Roman policewoman and got us into the traffic-restricted area in the old city where our hotel was, and then let us off after inviting us to dinner for Tuesday, our last night in Rome. It was a wonderful welcome, and all we had done to deserve it is bring along a big box from her parents as part of our checked luggage.

We left the bags at the Hotel de Teatro Pompeii, where our room was not ready, and set out for one of the walks in Georgina Masson’s Companion Guide to Rome. We tramped and tramped, finally stopping at an outdoor bar for a salad and a beer. But I still couldn’t eat. I drank the beer and managed to get down about half the salad, but that was it, and I still had to get up and walk around the block once. The jitters weren’t going away.

We walked till about three, at which time Don was dead on his feet (he can never sleep on planes), so we went back to the hotel. But I couldn’t stop. I went out, guidebook in hand, and finished the walk. Then I came back and collected a refreshed Don, and we finished the walk again. I’m not sure how much I retained, but it was interesting. I still couldn’t eat much at dinner — managed half a bowl of soup and a third of a seafood salad—and could only go to sleep sitting up with a book after taking a sleeping pill. A day I hope never to repeat.

The next day, Saturday, we paid a return visit to a landmark we had discovered Friday but been unable to enter. Borromini’s Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza is invisible from the street, but Don had looked up at one point in our walks and spotted the strange and unmistakable golden spiral cupola on top of its white dome. The church is enclosed in a plain, severe building — long the University of Rome — with a stately courtyard surrounded by two-storied columned cloisters. Saturday morning the church, at the far end of the court, was open, and we entered with about ten other people — “Probably all architects or architectural students,” muttered Don — to admire it. Borromini went all out. The geometry is so complex that we were grateful for a small plan in one guidebook — two triangles superimposed to make a six-pointed star and hexagon, all making one spectacular unit. The interior is really quite small, probably seating no more than a couple of hundred people, but the soaring space is terrific.

Then we headed for the Campidoglio — Michelangelo’s Capitoline Hill complex. It is still quite a climb, though not as bad as the 6th-century church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli next to it on the hill. Neither of us had seen inside the museums, so we explored. One of the buildings is compact; one has been added on to in the back and sprawls. Lots of classical statues, including wonderful Roman portrait busts, and some good paintings, but we were most taken by the colossal bits of Constantine in the courtyard. The famous statue of the she-wolf, very ancient with the babies Romulus and Remus added much later, is in there, as well as the Dying Gaul and the Roman statue of the little boy getting a thorn out of his foot.

We had already seen the Campo di Fiori, just a half block from our hotel, and enjoyed the incredible flowers and vegetables on sale every day in the market. We revisited the Piazza Navona, which we had seen briefly the night before after dinner, to admire the Bernini fountains and the outside of the Borromini church — much bigger than Sant’Ivo. We hit Navona any number of times during our stay; like the Piazza de Rotonda (the Pantheon) it is right on the way to a lot of things we wanted to see. Both were always full of people, day or night. And round the corner from the Pantheon is the wonderful Bernini statue of the little elephant with the obelisk on his back. Our Masson guidebook led us into one large church (I think San Lorenzo dei Francesi) between the two (there are, of course, large churches on almost every corner, nearly all Baroque) to see a chapel full of Caravaggios. Magnificent! The book commented that it was the most painting in the smallest space we were ever likely to see. There we discovered the common Italian habit of having a little box in every side chapel — and sometimes one for the apse as well — into which you insert coins to make the lights come on.

We finished our second walk some time after lunch and decided to head for Vatican City, since our various guidebooks all disagreed on the hours for the Vatican Museums. It is quite a hike, but we got there about four thirty to find that the museums were indeed closed. St. Peter’s, however, was open — at least the part of it that wasn’t swathed in scaffolding. They have ruined Bernini’s grand plaza in front of St. Peter’s by building a large and very ugly platform at the foot of the basilica’s steps, presumably for public appearances by the Pope, and putting yards of portable fencing all around to keep people at these audiences in their respective groups. The space now doesn’t read as a magnificent space at all.

Inside, the basilica is still amazing. One book said that the whole church of San Carlo alla Quatra Fontana — another Borromini on our short list of Things to See — would fit inside one of the great pillars holding up St. Peter’s dome. Everything is so overscaled that the mind doesn’t take it in. A charming little cherub holding up a frame is suddenly seen to be the size of a six-foot man at the very least. The paintings (which according to the guidebooks are actually very fine mosaics) are the size of a house façade. Hundreds of people were milling around in the place, but it seemed relatively uncrowded. The dozens of confessional booths have little signs listing various languages you can use to confess.

We finally wore out and departed, down Mussolini’s great destructive avenue that used to spoil the effect of coming upon Bernini’s great plaza until they spoiled the plaza. On the way back to the hotel we passed a nice-looking restaurant— Bacco — in a back street, so we managed to find it again after a nap and had a very pleasant dinner. The waiter (owner?) did a graphic demonstration of the types of meat on the menu for us. Trippa was a pat on the stomach, though we had already realized what it must be and rejected the idea. Prosciutto  was a slap on the rear. We settled for some very good vegetable soup instead of pasta, and veal. Always there is veal. I had observed more than forty years ago that the Italians never let a cow grow up, and it is still true. Or not quite — we did find a few bistecca listings on menus later.

Sunday we tried the Vatican Museums again. So did everyone else in town. The line was twelve people thick and blocks long. But on the way, when we reached the big avenue, we ran into costumed crowds of people lining the streets and cheering wildly as hundreds of puffing citizens in shorts and sneakers ran past. We had hit the Rome Marathon. We continued to hit it all day — its route takes it past every major landmark. Among the cheerers was a brass band in spectacular helmets with thick black plumes that hung down like hair. Just as we passed them they burst into a jazzy march, all of them pointing their horns skyward. They were terrific.

We gave up on the museums and headed back to the city. We passed the Trevi Fountain along with half the marathon. Supporters were handing out wet blue sponges to the runners at this point; the ground was squishy with used ones. We found San Carlo alla Quatra Fontana — Borromini’s first job after his career as a stonemason, although the façade is one of his last works — and admired the outside, but it was closed. (The invaluable Rick Steves told us on a later trip to try churches in the mornings, and we got to see all of them. None of the other guidebooks thought to mention this vital fact.) Down the street another famous Baroque church, Bernini’s Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, was also closed. We walked all the way around the Quirinale Palace and gardens en route, but they are also chiuso, closed because of being the presidential palace. Instead, we plodded down the hill past the piazza with the statue of Castor and Pollux with horses (learning only later that it was an ancient statue — as is the habit with most Roman monuments, the name of the donor Pope is writ large in stone and any information about what the monument might be is ignored). We found a bar with outside tables almost at the foot of the hill and managed to point our way to some quite good sandwiches and beers.

Trajan’s Market was nearby, so that was our next stop. Neither of us had seen it before. Quite a thing to explore a three-story, two-thousand-year-old shopping mall. It’s amazingly intact, all in brick, with arcaded shops and windows overlooking a plaza. (We were puzzled when the guard handed us free tickets — gratuito —  but learned a few days later that all national landmarks were free during the week before Easter. We should have gotten in the Campidoglio free, too, but Don had paid for the tickets by the time I managed to puzzle out the sign that said no charge for people over 60. Oh, well.)

Worn out, we headed for the park area around the Victor Emmanuele Monument and the Forum. So did the marathon. That was the end point, and runners with supporters were collapsed all over the grass. By that time we were in need of ice cream, so we found a bar gelateria. That, incidentally, takes a bit of getting used to: bars generally serve ice cream. Accustomed to the rigid separation of the two in America, we had to readjust. A rest, and then dinner near the hotel, across the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele from the nearby Sant’Andrea del Valle (scene of the first act in Tosca —  and we never even went in!).

On Monday we finally made it into the Vatican Museums. Like St. Peter’s, it boggles the mind with its size. Of course the Pio-Christian Museum with the Giotto that I wanted to see was chiuso, but we saw a wonderful little room full of Fra Angelico frescos, and for the first time I saw Raphael’s “School of Athens.” It’s in a surprisingly small space, so you are really face to face with it. I’m not a big Raphael fan, but I was glad to see it. Tons of rooms with frescos by slightly lesser lights, but still good, were on the route: one whole set of rooms painted by Pinturicchio was marvelous. And finally, the Sistine Chapel. Going through the museums is now the only way you can see it. Well! The restoration is terrific, despite the nay-sayers. It looks wonderful, colorful, vivid. They are now working on the side-wall frescos, so we missed a couple of Botticellis. We stayed gaping for quite a while, then walked back through several miles of corridors (it is a 20- to 30-minute walk straight back to the front door, without stopping to look at anything! (Again, on our last trip Rick Steves saved us again—there is an inconspicuous door at the foot of the chapel that brings you out right in front of St. Peter’s: it used to be only for tour groups but now they just leave it open.) (Later note, from our trip in 2012 with Brian: the tour guides apparently objected to this convenience and it is closed again unless you have identification as part of a group) and outside for lunch at a pizzeria down the way.

Back past the Castel Sant’Angelo (one of these days I’m going to get into that castle) into the city. We headed past all the expensive shops to the Spanish Steps, sat on them for a while, and then headed in the general direction of the Termini (train station). We were looking for a bank listed in the phone book, but it wasn’t there. Meanwhile we passed the Piazza Barbarini and the Palazzo Barbarini, but were museumed out for the day. We did, however, want to see the classical and Etruscan stuff at the Museo Nazionale Romano, housed in the Baths of Diocletian across from the Termini. Chiuso. So we headed down the noisy, depressing Via Nazionale off the Piazza della Repubblica (which now has a MacDonald’s) and found a gelateria bar in the Campo di Fiori to rest our feet.

For dinner we went all the way past the Pantheon to a restaurant I had spotted the day before, but Don took a dislike to the outside and we went back to Bacco, where we had eaten Saturday night.

Tuesday we headed out around the Victor Emmanuele Monument, past the Forum and the Colosseum, and down a long street to see San Clemente. I was particularly wanting to see it, having recently re-read a Ngaio Marsh mystery in which the murder takes place in a thinly disguised San Clemente. It is fascinating: an 11th-century church built on top of a 5th-century church built on top of a Roman house with a Mithraic shrine. The mosaics are beautiful in the medieval church, and there are pretty complete frescos still visible in the old church underneath. Going down to the Roman house, also excavated, is a bit claustrophobic. Don went exploring in its labyrinthine corridors, but after a brief look I decided I’d meet him upstairs.

We wandered in the direction of the Parco di Traiano, hoping that the remains of Nero’s Golden House were open. Nope, chiuso. We couldn’t even find where the entrance was. All we could see were the few remains of the Baths of Trajan which he built on top of Nero’s little spot (which covered half the city). After exploring some back streets from there we found a place for lunch and then headed for the Forum. Every time we had been near it we’d found it closed, but today it was not only open but free. It is always interesting, but it has so many parts and successive generations that it is like the Agora in Athens—disconnected bits of history. The most amazing ruin is the Basilica of Constantine. We had seen it as we passed by outside the Forum on the way to San Clemente, and been stunned by its size. It was no less gigantic from inside. Huge arches and vaulted roofs, all made of brick, with arched openings connecting them.

A way up to the Palatine Hill led from an arch at the end of the open part of the Forum, so we climbed up. The ruins on top, surrounded by pine trees, are incredibly beautiful, so of course we ran out of film just as we reached them. We wandered, but were getting very tired by this time. The nearest way out led us down the far side, as distant as we could get from our hotel. Then they had closed the most direct road, so we had to walk around the entire Circus Maximus, which is very long, to get back along the river, and then walk, and walk, and walk. Finally made it back to the Campo di Fiori for a beer and then collapsed for a while.

This was our last night, and Anne had asked us to come to dinner. We walked across the river to Trastevere (which simply means “across the Tiber”) and down past Tiber Island to their apartment house. She and Gian Luca had just moved from the place next door to a larger apartment, since they were expecting a baby in June. The apartment is beautiful, the dinner was delicious, and we had a wonderful time with them, getting a great many hints to help with our travels. Anne also lent us a small duffel to replace our poor broken bag: all we had to do was return it to her mother at home when our trip ended. The last touch was a little glass of limoncello, the liqueur made in the Amalfi area; they advised us to watch out for it and buy some. We did.

We had planned to get to the airport to pick up our car by walking across the river and catching a bus to the Piramide stop, which is next to the Ostiense station from which a train was supposed to leave for the airport. Thinking better of it the next morning as we hefted the bags, we asked the desk man for a cab to Ostiense. “Ostiense è chiuso,” he said matter-of-factly. “Terminale.” Good thing we asked. The cab driver took us to Terminale with only one hand-waving, expletive-shouting confrontation with a small truck, so we were lucky.

Getting out of Leonardo da Vinci airport is much easier than getting out of Charles de Gaulle. The roads are well-marked, and the man at the car rental desk had given us a little map and drawn lines on it for us. No problem, except for the mad Italian drivers. We only had a little snag while still in the garage: not only was the car not in the slot they had told us, but when we found it it wouldn’t start. A man whose sole function seemed to be to monitor this situation came over, leaned in the window, and showed Don how to hold a little gizmo on the key chain up to a little red light on the dashboard. Some sort of security feature. The little light turned green and then the car would start. This had to be repeated every time we got in the car, but only by the end of two weeks did Don routinely remember.

We sped down the autostrada at what we considered quite a clip, but the number of BMWs and Mercedes that roared up, spent 60 seconds threatening our bumper, and then whipped around us was amazing. So was the way they tailgated and cut back in front of us, missing our fender by inches, when there wasn’t another car anywhere near. Just for the fun of it, I guess. One BMW went past us later so fast that his wind pressure rocked our car nearly off the road, and we were going about 70 at the time.

Don, after insisting that of course we were going to Naples, decided that he wouldn’t dream of driving in Naples and therefore we wouldn’t go there. Fine with me: I’d like to see the Archeological Museum, but the Capodimonte National Gallery was closed for renovations and I didn’t want to inch through hideous traffic while we tried to find a hotel and the museum. So we went around and headed straight for Pompeii.

Pompeii

It’s a good thing there is a spectacular site at Pompeii, because the modern town does not charm. We finally found one of the Baedeker-recommended hotels even though the sign pointing to it led the wrong way up a one-way street, and fortunately there was a room. This was my first practice at my often-used question “C’è una stanza doppia?”  (Is there a double room?) After we left Rome we had no reservations and were winging it. The large proprietress, once she discovered that we spoke English, even said “Good morning” in her stately basso when we said “Buon giorno.” We walked around for a while, looking in the shops and being amazed at what was being sold for souvenirs. I have seen a lot of bad souvenirs, both in stores and sidewalk stands, but these were outstanding. Figurines that were ghastly enough plain were covered with glitter in various colors, scarves you wouldn’t be caught dead in — even the postcards were ugly. On top of that, we made a poor pick of restaurant and had our only bad meal of the trip — veal in greasy library paste, with watered wine.

But the next morning we drove easily to the site and walked around it for a good three hours. We did a lot of dodging of school groups, which had been all over the place in Rome, too; Easter week seems to be the time for field trips. With a little foresight, though, we could be quite alone. We were particularly charmed by the fullers’ business, where they finished fabrics and laundered clothes by trampling on them in vats full of water and either soda or urine. At one of the many ancient bar/fast food places, with counters and shelves plus holes to contain the pots, a chunky, middle-aged guard came in and told us all about it in Italian. It was neat: since we already knew what he would be saying we could actually tell what he was saying, and he took obvious pride in where he worked.

We had a quick lunch outside the site and headed for Sorrento. Or tried to. The intersection where we turned was clearly marked, but we didn’t see any further signs, and after a couple of miles the road dwindled to a one-lane dirt job with construction blocking half of that. We retraced our steps, back to the intersection, and asked someone. Oh, yes, that was the way. Try again. This time we crept, much to the annoyance of other drivers, and as we passed the parking lot of a supermercato I spotted an extension of it beyond some buildings that seemed to, oddly enough, have toll booths on one side. “Here!” I shouted. Don drove on. “There! Back there!” I shouted again. He complained that he hadn’t seen anything, but turned in a driveway and went back. Sure enough, off what looked like part of the parking lot was the entrance to the autostrada to Salerno and, opposite it, the road to Sorrento. We hadn’t seen signs because there weren’t any — until after you turned.

The road to Sorrento and onto the Amalfi drive is still spectacular, but I was too busy “helping” Don drive (cringing at oncoming buses and trucks, hanging on to the handle, and putting my foot through the floorboards) to enjoy it much. He probably saw as much as I did. Also it was misty over the water, and my Bonine, while it kept my stomach in place, didn’t seem to be doing much for my head. Don drives beautifully on such roads, but my inner ears weren’t realizing it. We turned off into even higher cliffs to get to Ravello, which Anne and Gian Luca had said we shouldn’t miss, and managed to find the Hotel Caruso, a lovely old resort hotel that was pricier than most we stay in, but was available. The view out our window was gorgeous, right over the water from way high up, looking south down the cliffs.

Ravello was delightful. We wandered around, toured the Villa Rufolo — in ruins, but with great gardens and view — and stopped for hot chocolate in the square, with many mothers and children. Also bought a couple of small bottles of limoncello. Then we walked and walked to the Villa Cimbrone, which always seemed to be around the next bend and flight of steps. By the time we got there it was on the verge of closing, so we admired the outside and went back. We had passed a nice-looking restaurant right off the square, the Victoria, so after a rest we went back there. We were the only customers. At the end of the meal the waitress brought us little frosted glasses of chilled limoncello — free. I guess they were glad we were there.

Next morning we headed back down the cliffs to the Amalfi Drive again. We were only halfway through it. We made it, drove around Salerno, and headed for Paestum. It was a nifty site, once we had driven in circles around it for a while (the signs to the entrance itself were non-existent). Don had been there back in the fifties, and has good slides, but there has been an enormous amount of excavation since then. On his visit he remembered only the three temples, but now there are the remains of houses all over and a number of other buildings and a forum uncovered. Unfortunately the chief temple, the Tempio di Nettuno, was swathed in scaffolding and the “Basilica,” the 6th Century B.C. archaic temple next to it, was partially so. Only the smaller temple of Ceres was unsheeted. The museum, quite new, was remarkable. When I studied art history in college, I seem to recall that Greek painting was known only through Roman copies, and there were no originals known, but here were rooms upon rooms full of frescos taken from Greek tombs in the nearby necropolis. Also the metope sculptures from the Tempio di Nettuno (which was actually dedicated to Hera) are on display, up high so you can see them from the right angle.

After lunch at the site, we headed south again, this time on another mountainous, hairpin-curved road. I’m still not sure if we missed a newer road or if it was still unfinished (dotted lines on the map), but the autostrada was too far inland to reach, so we followed what we were on. Had to stop and ask directions at a little store in the middle of nowhere, and some kind workmen confirmed that, as we had begun to suspect, we had taken a wrong turn a couple of miles back. We reversed and found the right one. It seemed to take eons, but we finally hit flatland along the seashore and reached the outskirts of Maratea.

We were looking for the Villa Cheta Elite, recommended by Karen Brown’s book. Found it, spiraled up the steep driveway, and then I climbed and climbed to reach the villa. I came puffing in the door to be greeted by a broad smile from our bearded, white-haired host. We negotiated in Italian, and fortunately they did have a room, so there we stayed, with another beautiful view out our window. Again, it was pricey — we found that we spent a lot more on lodging in Italy than we had in France. The food was luscious, both dinner and breakfast. Best breakfast buffet we encountered, even though there seemed to be only six guests in the hotel.

In the morning Signor Aquadro told us in slow, beautiful Italian how to head for Sicily, drawing a rough map to help. La strada was very slow and curvy — a wiggly line — for venti kilometri, but then it became straight, and we should go to Falerna, where the autostrada was very close by and we should get on it. We did, and it worked perfectly.

The entire town of Villa San Giovanni seems to be devoted to putting people on the ferry to Sicily. Huge signs for Traghetti  (I had looked it up so we could find it) and enormous parking lines that closed off when they had a boatful. I managed to buy us a ticket — the amount depends on the size of the car — and we finally got on after sitting in line for about a half-hour. We had ridden on tons of ferryboats in Greece and Turkey, but never driven onto one before. It was a short trip, but enough for restroom visits and a little scenery watching.

Sicily

Messina was a mess. We were funneled onto a street clogged with traffic and construction and took ages to get out and onto the autostrada.

We drove down to Taormina and got very lost in the town. Maps don’t help when everything is vertical and there are no street signs. We drove and drove, looking for the street with the Villa Fiorita, which Karen Brown’s book said was on the main access to town and easy to find. Hah. I think she was coming from the other direction. Finally got another map and some vague directions at a bus depot, and then got some better directions from a boy in a private parking lot. A sinistra al’arca, he told us, making an arch with his arms, so when we saw (again) the ruined arch we had passed much earlier we tried turning left, even though it looked as if we were driving right into an outdoor café. There we were. A very grumpy man at the hotel desk reluctantly allowed us to have a room, though only after poring over at least three reservation books trying to find an excuse to refuse us. (The hotel seemed to be practically empty!) The much more cheerful bell man led us up three long flights of steps before we even reached the elevator (the hotel is built into the side of a hill) and then pointed out that although our room key said 305 that one had to press 4 on the elevator. Nice room, with yet another great view.

Once we weren’t driving, the town was delightful and we loved it. We walked to the Greek theater, which chiefly serves to frame a spectacular view, and then all around, stopping in a nice square for a beer. The square where they had taxi stands was great — a group of trees in rows had been clipped so beautifully that they made a perfectly uniform roof. We found a good restaurant area and went back there for dinner.

The next morning we headed down the autostrada to Siracusa. After some confusion getting around Catania we made it — the signs kept trying to head you back northwest to Palermo, and the autostrada to Siracusa is still mostly dotted line. Dotted lines seem to stay a long time in Sicily — our friend Santo’s 15-year-old guidebook was quite accurate about what roads were finished and were not.

We had trouble finding a hotel in Siracusa. The one we were looking for turned out to be way out of town, and we didn’t want that. We finally stopped at a business-type Hotel Jolly on the main street, which was quite expensive and lacked charm. Then we drove out to the main archeological site and explored. To our surprise, although it was very big there wasn’t much, considering that Syracuse had been a Greek city rivaling Athens — only a big 5th C Greek theater, and a 2nd C AD Roman amphitheater  beautifully surrounded by and filled with flowers. There was also a tall artificial grotto called “The Ear of Denis” because the tyrant Denis supposedly could hear through a hole the talk of prisoners confined there. It did have strange acoustics.

We had lunch there and went back to the hotel to park and walk. The modern town of Siracusa is without attraction, so we headed straight for the island of Ortygia attached to it. Quite a long walk to get there, and then we followed the walking tour in Santo’s guide and wore ourselves out completely. One ruined temple stands in a square; further along Archimede Square has a lovely fountain. We found the duomo, which had been built inside a Greek temple: you can see the columns all along the outer walls, filled in. But chiuso. Nice waterfront area, and we walked as far as we could until we reached the fort at the end, which was closed to the public. Still military. Back to Archimede for a beer.

Right off it there is a tiny square that has what the book said was “the saddest sight in Syracuse” — a ruined Gothic palazzo that is just being allowed to rot. As I was taking a picture of the delicately traceried (and glassless) windows a man came out on his balcony and gestured at it. “E bella, no?” I agreed, he asked if we spoke German, and when we didn’t he launched into quite a spiel about the palazzo. In Italian, of course. But with all of the gestures, we knew almost everything he was saying. Somehow they had found enough money (fingers rubbed against thumb) to restore that newer palazzo over there (a Renaissance-vintage one across the way), but never this poor beautiful thing. Hints of dire machinations and fraud fairly dripped from him. Something had definitely happened to money that should have gone into his pet building.

We trudged on weary feet back to the hotel, looking in vain for restaurants near it. We definitely didn’t want to eat there, having looked at the staggeringly expensive menu, and we didn’t feel like walking all the way back to Ortygia.

Finally after our rest we took a cab back to Archimede Square. It appeared that everyone within a 20-mile radius was either going to Ortygia or coming back from it — it was solid with traffic. The wide main road to the island was mostly one-way inland, but one lane was marked for buses and cabs outbound to the island. Needless to say, all the inbound people were using it as well, and the cab kept coming nose-to-nose with them until they gave way. The driver finally made an expansive gesture and said “E caos!”  and laughed. We agreed — the word may be pronounced and spelled differently in Italian, but it means the same thing.

We found a little restaurant we’d passed earlier and discovered that it was a rabbit warren of rooms and not little at all. Had a good dinner while watching the pizza man shovel his wares out of the oven and box them as fast as he could. Constant stream of customers. By the time we finished we had enough energy to walk back.

The next morning we headed back up toward Catania, only this time we did drive toward Palermo on the autostrada, only to get off before Enna in mid-Sicily. We were going to the Villa Romana del Casale at Piazza Amerina. After getting tangled up in the town, we found a tour bus and followed it, figuring that in the middle of nowhere it must be heading where we wanted to go. It was. For the middle of nowhere the site had attracted a lot of people, including the inevitable mobs of school kids.

The Villa is astonishing. It was only dug out of the mud in 1950. It was built, they think, in the waning days of the Roman Empire — 3rd or 4th c. A.D., possibly by the Emperor Maximilian. The whole complex is big enough to cover a football field. And it has 3,500 square meters of mosaic floors depicting everything from the labors of Hercules to bikini-clad girls playing various sports. They are spectacular. One hall was the size of a long, narrow gymnasium, with pictures of hunting scenes and wild animals all over it. The whole thing is roofed over in plastic with walkways built on the edges of all the rooms. We dodged packed tour groups and enjoyed it immensely.

We’d gotten there in less time than we expected, so after a quick lunch we decided we’d head back south to the seashore again. Sicily is smaller than you might think, as long as you aren’t on old roads in the mountains. By four we had passed through Gela and a lot of resort towns and were at Agrigento. We hadn’t intended to stay at the elegant Villa Athena, even though Karen Brown recommended it, but there it was, right at the temples, so in we went. We’d hoped to stay two nights, but could only get one. Just as well — the room was very expensive and very small, but it was saved by an incredible view of the Temple of Concordia out the window, and out a little porthole in the bathroom. They keep the temple lighted all night, so every time I woke up there it was, and we watched the light of the sun setting and rising on each side of it.

We drove back down the hill the short distance to the Valle dei Templi — which is actually a ridge, not a valley, parked, and hiked up toward the Concordia. The temples are all Doric; Concordia is in a great state of preservation because it once had a church built inside it, and the others have some columns re-erected. On one side of the road are the Temple of Hercules, Concordia (they don’t know who it was dedicated to), and Juno; the other side, behind the parking lot, has Jupiter and, much farther away, Castor and Pollux, whose reconstruction seems to be very dubious so we didn’t go. We climbed all over Concordia and Hercules and were staggered by the Temple of Jupiter, which would have been one of the largest in the ancient world if it had ever been finished. It had 66’-tall columns interspersed with gigantic figures of men, one of which has been put together flat on the ground so you can see what it must have been like. The rest are a jumble of stones. Earthquakes.

This was the first place where we were really overwhelmed by the wildflowers, although they had been lovely along the road and in Siracusa’s archeological site. All of Sicily seemed to be covered with yellow daisies, with relief provided by brilliant red poppies and something very purple that we didn’t recognize. Sometimes we could hardly pay attention to the sites because the flowers were so beautiful. April is definitely the right month to visit.

Again, we didn’t want to eat at the hotel, so we drove into the town and got in a hopeless muddle of traffic, ending in what turned out to be some housing complex’s driveway from which we had to back out — a long way. The only traffic light in town, at a complicated intersection, wasn’t working, which left a massive confusion of horn-honking, swearing drivers. “Plenty of parking,” the desk clerk had told us. No. We finally found a one-hour spot on the street, raced to a pizzeria, and managed to eat in record time.

Next morning we headed west along the coast to Selinunte, which turned out to be our favorite archeological site. It had been founded in the 7th c. BC and was destroyed twice by the Carthagenians. Even more incredible flowers, and a group of wonderful temples, one of which has been put back together (1958). It’s so nice that you can walk through and around everything. They don’t know much about these temples except that they are early and Doric, so have simply labeled them with letters. The big one is another candidate for largest classical temple. It is an incredible pile of huge stones that got flung every which way by the earthquakes. We climbed around in it and marveled. How had they ever figured out how to put the other one together from a mess like this? World’s biggest 3-D jigsaw puzzle. Then we drove to the other side of the ravine to the acropolis to see the walls and another temple.

It was still surprisingly early, so we decided to head north. There wasn’t much we wanted to see on the west coast. Karen Brown had recommended a B&B in Scopello, so we drove up the autostrada to Castellamare and past it to the B&B. It was lovely, but the young owner, an American of Asian descent married to an Italian, told us mournfully that she had just filled up. “Why didn’t you call last night?” she asked, and we had to confess that we had been terrified by the Italian phone system. She sympathized, and very kindly called a hotel back in Castellamare to reserve us a room after being very iffy about the other B&Bs in Scopello. So back we went, and found it with her excellent directions.

Castellamare, we discovered right away, is an anomaly. It has a perfect setting, a shell-shape surrounded by mountains and fronting the spectacular Golfo di Castellamare. It has picturesque streets with terraces, a waterfront castle, and a beautifully paved square on the water right in front of the hotel. And no tourists. That sounds wonderful, but think about it. No tourists means no cafés, no gelaterias, no bars, no restaurants. We wandered for an hour looking for a place to have lunch, and finally had to come back to the hotel and ask Ninni at the desk where one could eat. She gave us directions to a little seafood place on a side street, which was the only restaurant we ever saw and was so empty we thought at first it was closed. And the square in front of the hotel remained empty of people. The street facing it, at right angles to the hotel and overlooking the beautiful gulf, was called Petrolo and consisted of bus garages. Talk about wasted opportunity!

After lunch we drove west to Erice, a lovely mountaintop medieval town. Since Don was suffering from a newly acquired cold, he didn’t enjoy it as much as he might have. I toured the remains of the castle alone and enjoyed the spectacular views from there. He didn’t feel like coping with finding a place to eat dinner, so we bought some cheese and wine at a little store. The owner told us the bakery was chiuso, so we, forgetting the word for cracker, ended up with some bad Wonder-type bread. We ate in the hotel room.

Next morning we set out for Monreale, the famous cathedral above Palermo. We managed to find our way there (getting flagged down by the police once, but they sent us on our way when they realized we were tourists), though some of the roads we drove on seemed to be officially closed, but once we got into the town officialdom kept the cathedral — the only reason for the town — a deep mystery. After circling around for some time we again found it by following a tour bus. Only when you were inside the parking lot did they condescend to put a sign for the duomo. Monreale was a Benedictine abbey built by William II, a Norman king, in 1174, and he had to keep it a secret because his guardian was a big churchman in Palermo who was building his own cathedral. It has a great number of marvelous mosaics, again lighted only when someone puts coins in the boxes for the apse and the various chapels. The cloisters are terrific, too — the column capitals are wonderful folk art.

We got caught in Palermo traffic heading back and thought we’d never get out, but eventually did. The next stop was Segesta, another archeological site. It is right off the autostrada, but very isolated and lonely. Luckily, it does have a little café where one buys tickets, so we had lunch and then headed for the Greek theater. Stupidly, we passed right by a little bus parked on the side of the road, not realizing that it would take us up the hill. So we climbed, and we climbed, and we climbed, in the hot sun, more than a kilometer. But it was worth it. The theater is angled so that when you sit in it you are looking over the hills to the Golfo de Castellamare, and if you walk around you get great views all over. There’s a bit of Norman castle up there, too. We sneaked onto the bus to come back down, even though we didn’t have tickets. Then up a much shorter hill on the other side to see the Doric temple, which is beautifully set halfway up the hill with nothing at all around it. It was never finished, never even roofed over, and the carrying blocks on the stylobate stones are still on them. Normally they were chipped off when the stones were set in place. Also, the columns were never fluted, though all of them are still there. Quite lovely.

This night we ate in the hotel, and to our surprise had a delicious meal. But Ninni was worried about us. “You have to get out of Sicily,” she told us. “It is full.” This was the Wednesday before Easter, and apparently the entire population of Italy goes south for Easter. “You must head north,” she said. (Ninni, incidentally, was a gem. Not only did she speak English very well and French a little, but in every quiet moment she was poring over a German textbook. Noting the Italian-only male desk clerks we encountered everyplace else except Pompeii, we decided this was an example of a woman having to be twice as good to hold the same job.) We pored over our map with her. We hadn’t really planned to leave Sicily so soon, expecting to spend a little time in Palermo, and all we had in mind for the rest of the trip was to see the Trulli houses in Apulia. That certainly wasn’t going to take up all our time. We suggested Pescara, and she wrinkled her nose. Nothing there. We didn’t want to go north of Rome, as we expected to take another trip for that. She finally agreed that Foggia would be a reasonable destination, although the guidebook said only that a day trip around its peninsula (the “spur” on Italy’s ankle) was a good thing. She called a hotel there and made us a reservation for two nights hence. The intervening night we had to leave to chance.

We left early in the morning and managed to race through Palermo in between its rush hours. An unfinished section of the autostrada took a lot of time — hairpin curves for 25 kilometers along the north seashore — and we regretfully drove right past Cefalù, reputed to be a lovely ancient fishing village with a splendid Norman cathedral. Couldn’t risk it; Ninni said that hotels were filled all over, and indeed two places she had called for us, even on the nearby mainland, had been full.

Messina was traumatic, of course, but funny. Yes, they had signs pointing to the traghetti, in two opposing directions. We hadn’t really gotten a look at the place where we had arrived, being fully concentrated on getting out of there, so we didn’t recognize either direction. Finally we pulled into a small open area on the water next to a big building. Mercifully, there was a police car. “Traghetto?” asked Don. “Si, li,” answered the cop, pointing to a very small ferryboat ahead of us with its access door open. “Biglietti?” we persisted. He pointed toward the big building. I thanked him and sprinted for it. It looked more like a train station, but after getting past the bar and the restaurant and the waiting room I finally found a ticket office and with gestures of steering wheels and my knowing the model of car I bought a ticket. I raced back, we drove right on, and the boat departed. The whole situation couldn’t have been more different from the very organized ferry approach a few days earlier.

When we finally reached the autostrada on the mainland we could see that Ninni had been right. The lineup of cars waiting to get off the highway, never mind onto the ferry, stretched for miles. We whizzed past them and headed north. (The rest stops/restaurants on the autostradas, by the way, are quite good. We had lunch in a number of them.)

When the autostrada reached its closest point to the “instep” we turned off and chanced a town that looked middle-sized on the map: Castrovillari, in the middle of great ravines and mountains. Finally found a hotel on a side street after a considerable tour of the place — they had a sign listing a number of hotels at the city limits, but after that you were on your own. We got the distinct feeling that no Americans had ever stopped there — we drew stares when we went out for a walk. Anyway, the room was fine and we were relieved to find an acceptable place. Dinner in the hotel, to our surprise, was delicious, the dining room high-ceilinged and elegant.

The next morning we turned east through spectacular mountains and then drove along the coast road of the instep. We made a mild effort to see a small archeological site called Metapontum, but we followed all the signs and found only the beach, so we gave up and got back on the highway. Italy is very good at telling you everything about a site except where the entrance is — we had found the problem at Paestum and Siracusa and would find it again at Villa d’Este and Ostia Antica.

We left the instep as the heel began and headed north for the Trulli region. Found Alberobello and explored. The Trulli houses are very strange. We first saw them out in fields on our way, being used for some farm purpose, and then the towns have whole neighborhoods made of nothing else. They are small and square, made of whitewashed dry stone, with very pointy conical roofs made of gray stone slabs. Each dome is a separate room; they can be joined together to make whole houses or streetfronts, but normally have no windows. The doors are recessed into a gabled arch on the front. In Alberobello many of them had been made into little shops or restaurants, of course. They have been around at least since the 13th century, but no one seems to know how and why they originated.

After lunch, we struggled through some confusing roads and found our way (not quite by the route we intended) to Castel del Monte, a castle built by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen — one of 200 he built when he came back from the Crusades. This is the only octagonal one, and it is impressive, way up on a high hill, all alone in the middle of nowhere. It was luckily open, and well worth our muddle getting there. One book said he used it as a hunting lodge. It has a tower at each angle, with a huge room in between the towers on every floor, a giant fireplace in each room.

Then up the coast to Foggia. We had the name and address of the hotel, but that was it. After wandering around the center of town for quite a few frustrating minutes, we found a policewoman and showed her the address. She was baffled by the difficulty of communicating until Don finally realized that she was trying to tell us that it wasn’t downtown. We thanked her and tried to follow her directions, ending up on a wide boulevard going we knew not where. Suddenly there was a sign for the Prefectura di Polizia. We stopped, and this time Don got to go inside and ask. He came back finally with a hand-drawn map. We actually weren’t too far off: three traffic lights and a left turn at a roundabout. And we found it, on the road to the airport. We walked to a nearby mall for pizza and came back to collapse.

The next morning we set off across the plain for the Promontorio del Gargano, the “spur” on Italy’s boot, which is largely national forest but is ringed with little resort towns. We sort of accidentally got on the road through the national forest, which was winding and lengthy but pretty — at least for a while until it got a little old. It is, after all, the route recommended by Michelin, but the forest is rather scruffy. Finally emerged on the shore again and found a neat little village called Peschici (almost unpronounceable — Pes-ki-chi) on a cliff. We wandered around, had a good lunch in a funky little restaurant that looked like someone’s living room and had the restroom on the balcony, and finished off with ice cream at a gelateria. Then back on another wiggly road along the coast, with terrific views. Back in Foggia, we drove around the town with a little more confidence now that we weren’t looking for anything. It is a nice place, with a beautiful fountain in a circle. But we decided not to risk getting mislaid in it at night, so we ate in the hotel and dined well and practically alone. I ventured, having consulted the dictionary and muttered to myself a lot in Italian, to ask the desk clerks if they could make us reservations in Chieti and Tivoli, and they were delighted to do so. Chieti was fine, but the hotel that Baedeker recommended in Tivoli was full. Our clerk was determined. He sent a bellhop to find the telephone directory and pored over it until he found another hotel to call. Luckily, I was looking at the directory upside down as he was on the telephone and got the feeling that the hotel was in nearby Villa Adriana rather than Tivoli itself. That stuck in my mind. We thanked them profusely, but never knew if we should have tipped them. Oh, well.

Next day, Easter Day, we headed up the flat coast to Chieti. We stopped in a small town for lunch and walked into a little restaurant, only to think it was reserved for a private party. A long table stretched down the entire right-hand side, and it and even the couple of small tables were decorated with flowers and elegantly folded linen napkins. But the proprietess greeted us happily and brought us a little spritzer in honor of the day. We looked at the menu and asked for pizza; she was devastated — from what we gathered the ovens were only heated for pizza at night. She thought for a minute and asked “Lasagna?” Great. Meanwhile, the woman seated at the table next to us was getting an informal lesson in how to fold napkins in any number of complicated ways, so we even had entertainment. We left just as an enormous extended family began to arrive for their Easter dinner.

Somewhere along here we visited a castle. We remember driving to it, we remember that it was extremely windy on its hill, with a ravine separating it from the main part of town. We remember walking inside its courtyard and then halfway around its ramparts, until it got a little perilous. We took some really nice pictures of it. What we don’t remember is where it was. We’re still trying to figure it out.

Chieti is way up on a hill, with terrific view in every direction. We found the hotel where we had reservations, and the desk clerk informed us that “Il museo è aperto; il duomo è chiuso.” The cathedral was closed on Easter Day? Go figure. We asked if he had a map, and he did — an excellent one. So off we went to the Abruzzi Archaeological Museum. It was a delightful surprise. We were the only visitors, and we first had to find a guard and show him our passports to demonstrate that we were old enough to be gratuito  and then he had to find the ticket-taker and convince her so she could just register us. The museum is in a Renaissance palazzo. It was under construction in some areas; the guard complained to us that all this noise and disruption — expansive gestures — had been going on for more than un anno. Clearly he was sick of it. But the parts that were open were fantastic. We had to be escorted to the second floor by another guard, who sat and read his newspaper while we explored. They had some very nice ancient statues, including Hercules in both marble and bronze, the only interesting display of ancient coins we have ever seen (usually they are remarkably boring), and some pre-Roman artifacts that were fascinating. But the prize was the “Warrior of Capestrano,” which Michelin says is famous but which neither of us had ever heard of. It is a more-than-lifesize limestone statue of a very formal, stiff warrior who seems to be wearing a cowboy hat. Sixth century BC. Weird. We noted a certificate that said the museum had won a prize for best museum in Europe (presumably small museums) a couple of years ago, and could believe it. It was very well done.

We wandered around town, trying to stay sheltered from the gale-force winds and wondering if they were a constant. The cathedral was impressive from the outside, at least, and the streets were attractive. We were looking for a restaurant, but if there were any they were closed. Went back to the hotel for a little rest, but I was feeling claustrophobic and jittery in the tiny room with double storm windows because of the wind, so we went out to walk again. We finally ended up eating in the hotel yet again, and enjoyed the meal. The decor, on the other hand, was so amazingly kitschy that Don spent half an hour analyzing its ramifications.

The next day as we checked out of the hotel Don looked at the calendar. It said the 13th. “What day are our tickets home for?” he asked. “The 16th,” I told him. That’s what he had written down on the calendar at home, and I had carefully memorized it. “Check,” he said. I did. They were for the 15th. Sometimes you luck out.

Don went down to the hotel garage in the basement and came right back up. “Problemo,” he said to the clerk. “Mia macchina.” (putting a hand down). “Macchina, macchina, macchina, macchina.” (Surrounding the hand.) The clerk grinned, retrieved some keys, and went down with him to bail him out.

We got on the autostrada and headed back toward Rome. It was raining most of the way, but the views when it cleared for a bit were spectacular going through the mountains. Lots of tunnels, obviously, separated by incredibly high bridges spanning the valleys. One tunnel was 10 kilometers long. You really wonder what made them think they could ever build roads across these mountains; they are astonishing feats of engineering. A trip that used to take days is over in a couple of hours.

We got off at the exit nearest Tivoli, planning to visit the Villa d’Este in the afternoon and Hadrian’s Villa the next morning. But when we climbed up the hill to Tivoli we discovered that the entire population of Rome had apparently decided that the Villa d’Este would be a wonderful Easter Monday outing. Traffic solid, no place to stop, a mess. Back down the hill to Hadrian. There we managed to find a parking place in a field and went in to explore. I had never seen it before, and it is enormous. I was expecting a villa, not a small city. Michelin says it was probably the richest building project of Roman history, and all designed by Hadrian. Two sets of Roman baths, lakes, a palace, a library, and so on. It was drizzling a good part of the time, so we ducked between raindrops and tried to stay out of the mud.

Before we left (after a quick lunch on site) I asked a policewoman about our hotel — the one I thought I had read was in Villa Adriana rather than Tivoli. Thank goodness, I was right. She gave excellent directions, and once we found the hotel after one miscue we realized how excellent they would have been if we had understood them all. We managed a sinistra at the gate, and a sinistra at the medieval torre, but the hotel was set back from the road and we missed it on our first pass. We had gotten something about the entrance to the autostrada, and after we turned back and found the hotel we understood that she had been saying that if we got there we had gone too far.

After we settled in we got back in the car and drove up to Tivoli again — knowing it was too late for the Villa d’Este but wanting to do something beside sitting in the hotel room looking out at the rain. We drove around the town for a while, despite continued heavy traffic, and out around its back to see the place where the river Aniene has been channeled through a hill and plunges out the other side in the Great Cascade. Unfortunately, they turn it off at night (engineering achievement!) and it stopped just as we got there. The guidebook said they did this because of disastrous floods, but we still wondered how a river could flood when the town is on top of a steep hill that seems to be the highest thing around. We stopped for a sinful cup of rich hot chocolate and whipped cream, with much joking about its fattening qualities between us and the owner, who kept dipping into the whipped cream and patting her hips.

Dinner at the hotel was again an almost-solitary experience; there were so few people in the hotel that they didn’t even present a menu. The waiter asked “Pesce o carne?” and when I said “carne” he spouted some options of which I caught only agnello. I nodded. “What’s agnello?” asked Don. “Lamb,” I said. We each got four lamb chops. We felt like pigs and loved every bite.

Next morning we headed back up to Tivoli to try the Villa d’Este again. We parked and wandered around trying to find the front door, which should be on the main square and isn’t. Finally found a formidable locked gate on a side street and stood there in the slight drizzle trying to figure things out. An Italian family arrived. “E chiuso,” we said. “Chiuso?” the father roared. The barber from the shop a few feet away appeared at his door. “Il piove. E chiuso,” he explained, gesturing at the clouds. Neither we nor the family were pleased. So much for the Villa d’Este.

We headed for the ring road around Rome and circled to the south to Ostia. We were flying blind about hotels: neither Baedeker nor Karen Brown mentioned the place but it is right at the airport and Ostia Antica is a place we wanted to see. We finally got into the town, but saw only two five-star hotels, and the place is very difficult to drive in. A railroad bisects it, with only one crossing, so you can go in strange circles and find yourself stuck on the wrong side. Also the main entrance road is one-way in one direction until the crossing and then one-way the other direction afterward. We gave up and checked into a five-star business hotel. Later when we walked down to the seashore (the wrong way on the one-way street) we found a whole area full of small hotels and restaurants, but never did figure out a way to get there in the car. We had enough difficulty getting back out of town to go to the archeological site.

But we did, and after some confusion we parked the car near an intersection and walked down the long fence that circled the place. That’s when we could see our problem — despite dozens of enormous overhead signs saying “Ostia Antica” along the highway, the only sign for the actual entrance was a tiny one next to the gate that could only be seen from across the street.

Ostia Antica is huge. The walk from the entrance to the end of the site is well over a kilometer, not even counting all the side streets and buildings to enter. And it is deserted — I don’t think we saw more than 20 people on our whole tour. The best place was the Piazzale della Corporazioni, a courtyard filled with beautiful pines and circled with what used to be trading offices. Each one has a mosaic on the sidewalk depicting its trade. Three-story apartment houses are still in a wonderful state of preservation in some areas, so you get a real feel for the streetscape. We wandered around for a couple of hours, charmed.

Dinner that night back at the seashore area, in a restaurant whose proprietor took as much pride in his English as in his food, which was good. And back to the airport in the morning. With a night-time cold pill I managed to sit in my seat unfreaked during the flight, and we were home.