Incredible Italy

We have returned from our magical week in incredible Italy. Its slightly rocky beginnings in Milan assured us that things could only improve (…waiting for our host to evict the ne'er-do-well who was still occupying our bed, leaving our bags to be watched by Giuseppe at the "desk" who assured us of his honesty by waving an impressive hunting knife while pointing in the direction of our precious belongings…..) Some Italian beers and Focaccia prepared us for our tromp through the streets of Milan. The first thing that we saw was a car burst into flames. Have we walked into the set of “Godfather V”?

Italy remains a vivid memory upon which we plan to draw for a very long time, which is why the travelogue is written in the present tense! We have many wonderful pictures to add, and will let our readers match our written highlights as follows.
Milan:
We arrive in Milan on Saturday with great enthusiasm and one small backpack each. For this we are grateful in ensuing waits among train stations and hikes to hotels. Giuseppe, our one-star host, turns out to be a loquacious enthusiast for all things Italian, in particular Cinque Terre, after which we will supposedly "never want to go home". He makes a very fine breakfast cappuccino.

The Armani, Versace and Gucci shops in the square don’t hold a candle to Milan’s Duomo that towers brilliantly in the sunshine above the rabble of the crowd in the market. We hear a Mass there at 12:30 on Sunday. We carry on to stand in front of La Scala, where Millie starts to drool. And what will the chances be of securing a ticket-any-ticket for Don Giovanni next Saturday, we ask at the ticket office. Absolutely none; this information is delivered in a style to which we become accustomed over the next few days --– with haste and finality, tsak-tsak-tsak! We retreat to a lovely outdoor café supper where we share the air with two effusive Irishmen who have just bought new blue jeans at Versace’s. The jeans are full of rips and holes that would have had our moms at the mending machine for hours.

We know that Milan houses Da Vinci's "Last Supper" in the church of St. Maria della Grazia. We also know that access to this painting is available only by purchasing tickets in advance --- three months in advance, as it turns out. We walk to the church anyway, and it’s a breathtaking edifice. An off-work official notices our interest and offers to see what he can do. He finds us two tickets. Because we are not with a tour group, we enter the refectory alone. We stand in front of “The Last Supper” for a very long time. We are initially astonished at the size of the mural, and then we deliberate on the light and shadow, on the energy in the bodies, the character in the faces…. It is a stirring experience and oddly, I feel close to tears. How remarkable that art can move us in this way.

On Monday we are on our way to Cinque Terre, armed with a fine picnic lunch that we anticipate enjoying on the train as we speed through the hills of Italy. The train is packed. We sit tightly knee to knee, across from fellow passengers who seem less than interested in our company. The Italian girl by the window talks loudly on her cell after scarfing her meal of loud crackers, prosciutto and chocolate. The hefty fellow that she ousted to gain her rightful seat is hopelessly uncomfortable. She closes the curtains. Our picnic cheese in the overhead bin starts to stink.
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Cinque Terre is many wonderful things, but mostly it is an escape from all things metropolitan. Who could tire of the jaunts from village to village, alternating between paths along the turquoise Mediterranean and those over hill and dale, among the olive and lemon groves, vineyards and sheep cotes, squeezing in through narrow passageways among the homes of the villagers. Some of the trails are rugged and extremely difficult. We meet only a very few “vacationers” on those, and are thankful to be halfway fit. We are in high spirits about the sunny, hot weather. We are also happy for the picnic items in our packs – yesterday’s cheese, foccacia and a half bottle of great wine. In our three days there, we stay in a pretty room in Vernazza, where our "conversation" with the proprietor is carried out amidst charades and chuckling. We eat the best seafood and biggest prawns we've ever seen in quaint taverns in Monterosso. Ed goes swimming in the Mediterranean. We take a boat ride to view the villages of Cinque Terre from the sea. They seem to be hanging from the very cliffs. We buy an original painting, a view of Vernazza, from a sidewalk artist. We think of Daniel as we listen to a guitar-playing busker in the train station. We meet wonderful people on the trails and in the trains, sharing our experiences, writing down their advice... We are surprised at the number of American tourists.


Thursday: Florence
Florence is crawling! This we hadn’t expected, the sidewalks are packed and jostling is not out of order. We find cheap lodgings right downtown, doff our backpacks and go for a stroll. It threatens rain. We eat more foccaccia and pizza and decide to take in a comedy. It’s a mime send-up of the Baroque era ----plays, operas, etc. Millie wishes Johanna were there so they could go into hysterics together.

On Friday, we are told that the Uffizi Museum is booked, but we remember our experience at the Last Supper. And indeed, we crowd into a cue for tickets. “This time of year—no problem!!” pronounces the guard. We spend the better part of the day in awe in front of Raffaels, Rembrandts, Botticellis and Durers. The Da Vinci exhibition is also part of this gallery, and we realize we can’t get through it all. We move on to the National Art Museum to view Michelangelo’s statue of David. Our marvelous adventure continues to surprise and astonish us.

We walk along the Ponte Vecchio on our way to a concert in St. Margaret’s English Church. Ed takes pictures of Millie standing beside unthinkably expensive jewelry in stores supposedly reminiscent of the Medici days. Millie will have to be content with hanging the picture around her neck. The concert is delivered by an ebullient, tightly-wound tenor with an arbitrary sense of timing, accompanied by a pianist whose improvisations alone are worth the price of admission. However, the same slaphappy technique is visited upon his classical piano solo pieces, some of which Madeline has also played. His renditions were one-dimensional to say the least, mostly consisting of beating the piano to death! He does favour us with Maddy-style final chords that lift him right off the piano bench and into a bow upon which the audience cheers. BUT (and I know how Maddy hates it when I say things like this) I honestly prefer her interpretation with its subtleties that give the thrashing parts so much more meaning. There are chocolates at intermission.

Back to Milan:
We arrive back in Milan by train on Saturday. It is 3:30. Our bravura brings us once again to the ticket office of La Scala. There seems to be some excitement among a little knot of people, tightly jammed into a circle facing inward. We crowd around and see that the centre of the hubbub is a little bald man, writing down names. It doesn’t take long to “put 2 and 2” together and we become numbers 122 and 123 on the list to see Don Giovanni. We soon learn that our sincerity will be tested, as we must come back at 5:00 to receive our tickets. Come back? No, no, we will stand right there, even if it’s til 7:00!! We stay. Everybody stays. More people come, and more and more, forming an Italian cue that consists of something akin to an apple press. We have a great conversation with an Australian and an Israeli who are traveling together and in no time, it’s 5:30. Now I am truly thankful for my backpack, which provides some space from the merciless pushing. The little bald man is now at the height of his clout and loving every second of it. He is joined by a smiling fellow whom we presume has the tickets. Wrong. He has little pink slips with numbers on them --- coupons, if you will. All the names are now read in order, and this is worth the wait alone. Our little friend has great fun with the pronunciation of our names and we laugh along as we collect coupons #122 and #123. There is angst as names are read and no one comes forward. Someone turns up late. He doesn’t get a coupon. We maintain our post. At 6:00 our two “hosts’ are joined by a woman who turns out to be the barker. Literally. As she shouts the numbers in Italian, we press into the ticket office to exchange our coupons for the real thing --– tickets to La Scala. There is great rejoicing among all 140 of us who have secured such a windfall. We feel like a family. And now we return to Giuseppe. Who wouldn’t? We have SO MUCH to tell him.

In our jeans and shiny faces, we are in good company in La Scala’s peanut gallery where one risks life and limb hanging over the rail to see the stage. But ahhhhhhh... the VOICES….. Millie nearly cries. And the acoustics are beyond description as methinks we don't have "such' in Canada. The orchestra --- well, the orchestra was perfect. The subtleties, the dance, the drama, all these musicians are in love with their art. Oh my goodness. The evening ends with a glass of wine on a sidewalk in full view of Milan’s Duomo at night. Are we dreaming?