Day Three, we drive down the Amalphi Coast

Day Three:

By the way, Women hear this, in Italy the new ‘in’ color or is it the old ‘in’ color is now ‘in’ again- Royal Purple is it! Other purples and plums will work as well.

Donna had left her sun glasses in Rome when we left. This turned out to be somewhat of an emergency and she was determined to buy a new pair. Problem was, in Positano, you cannot get a pair of sun glasses for less than $150. We even went into a very small pharmacist that also had a rack of sun glasses in the window; I guess that the average Italian tourist wouldn’t be seen dead in a cheap pair of sunglasses. We departed after our continental breakfast, picked up the car and drove down into the village. At the bottom the road we met another two roads. We took the one heading south since that is the way we were heading. The other is the main road into and out of town. They widened is so that it is actually a two way road. However, I noticed that in order to widen the road, one lane was hanging out (cantilevering) in the air completely.

What can I say? The drive down the Amalfi coast was breathtaking. I became even more adept at pulling over to let faster traffic go by. This included buses and trucks. Everyone was in a hurry. I did however draw the line on the way home when these two guys on bicycles tried to pass me on a downhill grade. One can only take so much humiliation so I speeded up and lost them on an uphill grade. The drive was full of wonders. One incredible vista after the next. We wanted to stop in Amalfi but it was a zoo with buses everywhere and no place to park. We just pushed on and stopped in some other small town further down the coast. We walked on the beach, I got a Gelato, and we wandered into the town (uphill of course). I eventually found another Farmacia and went in to look for sun glasses. They had a rack with four sets of very dusty sunglasses on it. Donna liked one of the pairs and we went to buy them. How much we asked, the pharmacist said “yes” and called the lady from the back room who went over to the rack, ignored it and proceeded to rifle through a bunch of drawers full of sun glasses in packaging. She pulled out one pair after the next, how much we asked, “30€, no 20€ for you” she answered. Good price, but Donna wanted that particular pair that she had first selected and this lady would not sell the display model for anything. The lady pulled out one pair after another and Donna kept saying no, she wanted the pair she had originally selected. This was quite baffling to us. Why couldn’t we buy that pair? We weren’t getting anywhere fast so, pretty soon Donna and I are back there with this lady pulling out drawer after drawer of sun glasses in packages, opening them to check them out and putting them back. Again, Donna tried to get the lady to sell the dusty pair that had been in the rack and again the lady refused. This lady had rules and she was basically, inflexible. We did eventually get lucky and actually found a new, packaged pair of glasses identical to the pair that Donna had originally selected. Good thing too or we might still be there sorting out the contents of those drawers, there must have been over a hundred pairs stuffed into the drawers behind that counter. Up the street and around the corner we wandered into a tourist shop. Finally I had found what I was looking for. A tourist shop located in a small town with almost no tourists on a street unlikely to see many tourists because it was pretty much, way off the beaten path. The prices were much more reasonable than in Amalfi and that place that we had stopped along the ‘highway’ where all of those tourist buses had stopped as well. Donna selected the parts to make a tray with four (or was it six) espresso cups sitting around a small sugar bowl. All hand painted ceramic with some cobalt so it goes with all of the other cobalt stuff that we have in the Vista Casa. We also got a very nice signed reproduction of a typical hillside on the Amalfi coast with houses tumbling down toward the sea. I had a nice chat with the owner who seemed to think that I spoke Italian remarkably well for someone from San Diego, California.

One of the things that really amazed me was how these people had carved out this cliff for agriculture. In some places there were 20’ high retaining walls to create 8’ wide planted areas and this type of thing was all over the side of the cliffs. We decided we didn’t want to continue any further down the coast but that we had to visit Ravello which is a mountain town located essentially straight up in the air above the town of Amalfi. Well, what can you say about Ravello? Words just can’t even begin to do this mountain town justice. If you want to know what we experienced, you are just going to have to go there. You very definitely won’t be disappointed. We traipsed around the town for a number of hours, visited a castle type thing with a show on shoes and had lunch in a tratoria. I took hundreds of photos of architectural details. I think I want to start a business building new five hundred year old (mixed with two thousand year old buildings). The roads in and out of Ravello leading up that mountain may have been the narrowest that I have ever seen. On the way out we had to inch our way past a giant tourist bus with only inches to spare on either side of the car. A few minutes later as we slowly maneuvered past an Alfa Romeo in another tight spot, our mirrors kissed as we passed.

Thankfully, we made it safely back to Positano and that evening we chose to have dinner at a restaurant only somewhat down the street from the hotel instead of down by the beach so that the return uphill trip wouldn’t be so challenging. The collateral benefit of that is we sat next to a railing with the most incredible view of the town spread out before us. Donna thought the whole thing was very romantic. We ordered Spaghetti alla Carbonara and Donna Approved, it was very good.

For a lot more photos of this trip and especially Ravello, please visit my construction web site page on Antiquity Replication

Stairs and more stairs to the Hotel

First the ramp, then turn right

Then up a steep section to a landing with a good view

Another steep section, then a more gentle long stair/ramp

gets steeper along the way and we arrive at the hotel entrance with two stories worth of stairs to the lobby level

Another flight of stairs inside finally gets us to the level of our room

It was a long way up to that room in that hotel!

Day Two: Off to the Amalphi Coast and Positano

Today we leave for Positano on the Amalphi coast south of Naples, I decide to ignore the directions suggested by Google maps and got hopelessly lost trying to locate the freeway out of Rome. Thirty minutes later, we are on the right road (A1) out of town and do great until we leave the freeway south of Napoli. We need to exit because we have missed our exit somehow and are now rushing toward Salerno which is to the south of where we really want to end up. As we exit I consult with the toll collector and he gives me a long string of directions which escape me beyond the first left turn somewhere up ahead. So, we are lost all over again but basically, we need to go west since we are south of Naples and I know that the Amalfii coast is only slightly south of Naples too. We head past the signs to Pompeii and travel down a thin road through an old town that goes on and on. Eventually I feel the need to ask for directions at a gas station. I’m told that the freeway to Sorrento (near Positano) is only a few hundred meters ahead, just go right and then left. Well we go right and drive down a road that appears to be a main road, go around a corner and it dead ends. We turn around and examine a barrier that appears to be where the road used to go but doesn’t anymore. So I return up the hill the way we came and ask at another gas station. He tells me to take a left at the alley down the road. Sure enough there is a freeway sign pointing into this alley that is only 8’ wide. We go through the alley and come out the other end as it dead ends into a street. No freeway sign. We go left and pretty soon we are on our way to the Adriatic. This is not good, we want to be heading toward New York and instead we are heading toward Istanbul. We turn around again, return to the alley and this time continue the other direction. Success! Down, around a couple more obstacles and soon we are on the freeway which is where we are supposed to be on the road to Sorrento, we are actually back on the Google Maps directions again.

We had great fun once we are following the coast. This is one very thin road, barely as wide a one freeway lane with traffic going two ways above 500’ of vertical cliffs. On the way down, we are on the cliff side and giant tourist buses are going the other way. Naturally, they take the whole road and don’t really care much about the oncoming traffic. Good thing we have a car that is only six feet long and 4’ wide. Anyway, with careful navigation and luck, we arrive at the outskirts of Positano. There aren’t really any outskirts, but you do know you are almost there because this road that has been built out of the face of the cliff is now strung out with lots and lots of parked cars. Men in business suits are walking long distances down the highway toward town from their cars, very curious, we don’t understand why….. Well, according to Google Maps I could get to our Hotel called Copa D’Oro by taking the first right as we approached Positano. Note, this was not the main road and it really wasn’t apparent if I was looking for a paved road or a dirt road. Well, it was one way and that way was down. We wanted to travel slowly so that we could take in the sites and perhaps actually spot the hotel as we snaked downward toward the blue Mediterranean water below. I realized as this road went on and on down the hill that if we missed the hotel the first time, we would have to go to the bottom and then all the way back up to the top and then down again to find our hotel. Italians are always in a hurry and it took no time at all for someone to be riding my tail. As soon as possible, I pulled over and let the traffic pass by. As time went on and for the next few days that we were on the Amalfi Coast I became very adept at locating small niches in the road wide enough for me to pull over in so that someone could pass me. The roads of Positano make Lombard Street in San Francisco look like a freeway. It really isn’t safe to drive faster than 15 miles per hour but the Italians want to drive at 50 if they can and I won’t even mention the Vespas. Vespa drivers are the true daredevils of Italy. They are always going full throttle and don’t hesitate to pass a car or even a bus around a blind hairpin turn. At first I was wondering why everyone was in such a hurry on these thin dangerous roads but eventually I figured it out. It took a long time to travel very few miles between one town and the next along the Amalfi coast and up to Ravello. In fact, it would seem that a lot of the infrastructure in Italy was built by the ancient Romans when a road only needed to be wide enough for an oxen cart and a pedestrian. The roads have been widened slightly since then but aren’t any straighter now. If Italians only traveled at safe speeds, it would take forever to get around, thus the necessity is to drive like a maniac and to take your life into your hands at every turn. Dad, I now understand why you used to drive the way you did. You lived too long in Italy and absorbed their driving habits.

So anyway, down and down we go. It seems that we have come down the slope hundreds of feet as the road winds back and forth across this enormous cliff. The switch backs are incredibly tight and instant U-turns. The Micra handles the road like it was made for it but it wasn’t the first time that I wondered how I ever would have gotten around if I had been driving my truck. When I did internet searches for a place to stay in Positano, there had been perhaps twenty search results. Now that we are there, it appears that there may actually be hundreds of places to stay. When booking a room I was worried about finding a place with a view. Now I saw that it would be nearly impossible to build a house in Positano that doesn’t have a view. The buildings are practically built on top of the roofs of the houses below them. I did actually find a place on the internet that had some rooms with no windows at all so I guess it was possible to not have a view but just not very easy. We went around another corner where the cliffs hung out over our heads. There was a small scale replica village built into the base of the cliff and there in front of us, Donna spotted a sign that said parking for the Copa D’Oro. Wow, we had found our hotel. We pulled in, got out, were greeted by the parking lot attendant and as we opened up the back of the car, a very worried look came over his face. He said that there were a lot of steps leading up to the hotel. Then he emphasized that there really were a lot of steps leading up to the hotel. Then he got on the phone to the hotel and talked to the desk there. He told them that they needed to send someone down to get the bags but they did not have anyone so we were stuck. We took off toward the hotel, the first part was easy. Roll the suitcases behind us down the street to the corner and make a right down a step onto a cobblestone paved path leading away from the road. Ahead a sign indicated that the hotel was to the right. This is when things started to get tough. We should have repacked and condensed what we really needed for our three day jaunt down the coast of Italy, instead and because we had the car, we took everything with us. One largish suitcase for me, one smaller suitcase for Donna, my backpack with the laptop computer and another small roll behind for Donna plus jackets. Well, now I needed to carry all of this stuff up a vertical staircase. I have no doubt that by the time I was finished, and the luggage was in the lobby of the hotel, I had raised all of it up at least six stories worth of staircases twice. For each set of stairs that I climbed, I had to go back down to get the other half of the luggage and climb it again. To say that I was wiped out would put it mildly but I can’t complain too much since I really did need the exercise. I do wonder though how many guests have heart attacks trying to get up to the lobby of that hotel. The lady in the lobby welcomed us and said that we should have called up to the hotel and have them send down someone for the luggage. Yeah right. It was obvious that she was the only one there. She checked us in and we took an elevator to our room one more flight up from the lobby. She told us to leave the luggage and she would have it brought up. Guess what, she brought it herself. After all, she did have an elevator to use.

The hotel advertises a modest pool on the roof. When we checked in, the lady suggested that we would want to check it out. Naturally, Donna was disappointed that we hadn’t brought our bathing suits but never the less wanted to go check out the pool. I was a little skeptical because I had seen a photo on the web site and it only showed a small corner of it. Well, we get up there, and we find a Jacuzzi sitting on the deck. I experiment, push a few buttons and get the jets going but the water is cold. Donna wants to use the Jacuzzi so we go back to the desk to ask them to heat it and they tell us that it is only warm between 9:00 and 10:30 each morning. I think, yeah right 9:00 and 10:30 of alternating Sundays on leap years is more like it. So much for the pool/spa, whatever. The weather was perfect but this is the end of October after all.

The hotel was great, the view was stupendous! I had survived getting to the hotel, we showered and smiled as we sat out on the balcony and took in the view. Wow, Positano really is one of those very special places on the planet. It had been so long that I had forgotten how incredible this village truly was. So after a little rest, we put ourselves together and headed out. In Positano, there really is only one way to go and that way is downhill. The car was parked and the weather was great, and so we set out walking. As far as we had come downhill to our hotel, it seemed that we were still closer to the top than we were to the bottom. No matter, on the way down we did some window shopping, Donna looked at the clothes and eventually bought something at one of the places. I took lots of photos of alleys, the view of the town and the water; architectural details and this incredible cloud that was bit by bit enveloping the top of the cliffs above our heads. Eventually, we found ourselves on the beach at the bottom of the hill town just as it was getting dark. We found a restaurant right on the sand and had a long lazy dinner with a carafe of Vino Rosso. The restaurant had someone playing music and it really was quite idyllic. After dinner with a Gelato in hand we set off toward our hotel. No hurry, stop in the stores, check out an art gallery, after all, it is up hill all of the way, stop and admire the view, check out the wedding party in one of the restaurants along the way, and still, it is up all of the way. It had seemed a long way down, amazingly it was even further on the way back up and then, the stairs to the hotel. Well, they were terrible but after what I had gone through earlier in the day with the luggage, they were a breeze. We left the restaurant slightly inebriated and very full. When we were back in our room, we were sober and I have no doubt that we had burned off every calorie that we had taken in while getting back to the hotel but it was fun!

We return to Rome the following year... October, 2008 Day One

Preface, Before I left, I talked to Mahlon, he said that if I rented a car without a GPS, I would be screwed; see below….driving in Italy showed me how seriously challenging something can actually be…


Day One:

We arrive at the airport; there is no custom check whatsoever. So, we ask where the rental cars are, apparently, they are upstairs. Upstairs we are told that they are on the top floor, from there we are directed across the street to a parking garage. Inside the garage is a moving sidewalk, “follow the signs toward the Hilton” we are told, we travel from one moving sidewalk to the next and we arrive at a train station. Very cool, the train goes to the airport but the car rental is not here. I ask, they tell me to follow the moving sidewalks back the way I came. I want to argue, but my Italian escapes me so we return on the path we came. Turns out, the car rental was in one of those intersections behind the central post hidden from view as we came down the other way. Renting the car was easy, we got a Nissan Micra, a very small car but with four doors and larger then a ‘Smart’.

OK, so now we start the controlled destruction derby of driving in Italy. Remember, I never had driven here before. I obtained my driver’s license in the U.S. after graduating from high school. Well, it was a little harrowing and I soon learned the rule. Stop signs are just a suggestion, I’m not sure that I ever saw a car stop at one. It isn’t even like the ‘California stop’ where we role through the stop sign and intersections slowly. In this country they just don’t actually slow down at all as they go through the stop sign. OK, I can do that too. And if you put on your blinker to make a turn or change lanes, that is the same as challenging every vehicle within sight for that space. If a car doesn’t accelerate to close off the direction or lane you had intended to turn into, for sure at least one Vespa will. The goal is to get where you want to go without letting anyone crash into you.

What they didn’t know was that I have driven in Tijuana in my F-350 4x4 truck on many occasions. I realize that the truck is a little larger than a ‘Micra’ but the concept is the same, never let them see the fear that is in your eyes. .. We decided to go to Ostia Antica first since it was right next to the airport. The place was very cool; I got lots of photos of mosaic floors and other things. We had lunch inside the ruins at the taverna dei Slavi. Is that the word for slaves? Turns out it was Scavi (excavations). Ostia was very interesting but perhaps only half excavated, it may take them another hundred years to get it finished, we shall see.

Anyway, I had printed out directions from Google for getting to the apartment on Via Siria. The directions were probably good but the problem is that in Italy, labeling roads is a fine art specifically designed to miss-guide you and assure that you never find the location that you set out to find. We got hopelessly lost looking for Via Christoforo Columbo which must be the largest road in Rome. Really, it wouldn’t have been complicated if I had known that C.C. runs from E.U.R. to the center of Rome, after all, I could see that building in E.U.R. with all of the arches. If I had headed toward that, I would have been in like Flint. As it was, we were lucky that we didn’t end up on A1 on our way to Florence. We did eventually in a very convoluted manner end up on C.C. and followed it toward downtown until it ended in the piazza in front of the Termi di Caracalla. I hesitated for a second and ended up taking a sharp right onto the adjacent street, it was spectacular, walls on either side and cobble underneath. Tourists were walking along this seemingly secluded road which was puzzling until I figured out that we were on the Via Appia Antica. Well, soon enough we were beyond the city and on our way to Brindisi and the road was one way only. We stopped in front of the catacombs of San Sebastiano to figure out how to get home. Go left, left again and floor it, pretty soon we were back at the walls of the City. We made a right, followed the walls and began navigating by dead reckoning. It just felt right; this got me to within two blocks of Via Siria which isn’t bad! For those of you who know Rome but are confused as to where we stayed, here is the simple way, go past San Giovanni in Laterano, through the Porta di San Giovanni in Laterano and follow up Via Magna Grecia, there is a name change and it becomes Britannia and then Via della Concordia as it enters Piazza Zama. Via Siria is just beyond. We finally arrive at Via Siria 23. Renzo had been worried and waiting for us. He soon took off to fix a parking ticket that had been paid but they wanted money again. Italian bureaucracy at work.

I proceeded to plug in my surge suppressor for the laptop designed to only work on 110v I think I killed it. I also blew out the electricity for the whole apartment. Everything works on electricity or has an electric spark igniter. Cold showers, quite invigorating! Search everywhere, can’t find the electrical panel. We go out searching for a phone to Call Beatrice, by the time we return, Renzo is back, he resets the breakers and tells me that it is a good thing I didn’t blow the main which is down by the entry gate to the complex. Had I done that, it would have required the Utility Company to re-activate and a number of days for them to show up.

The Cars of Rome

I just couldn’t believe how small the cars were in Rome. The more we walked the more the wonder, as a result, I initiated a study of the cars. Here are the results. I think that for anyone who grew up in Rome, the old Cinque Cento (Fiat 500cc engine) has a special place in your heart.

The Mercedes 'Smart' & a Nissan

Large Mercedes

Lancia

This is why cars are small in Italy

Friday February 16th

 Wow, what a whirlwind of a vacation. Today Donna has to work, remember that she is a Feldenkrais practitioner and her work was our excuse for coming to Rome in the first place. Turns out there really was a job attached to the offer. By Wednesday, she was hoping it would go away; all she wanted was to continue the touring. So off she went and slowly I gathered myself and rolled out determined to find Trastevere again.

 I exited the palazzo vaguely thinking about a coffee and turned to the left, but as I made my way in that direction the bus pulled up to its stop. Thinking that I would just catch the next one I continued down the street but soon I was standing next to the bus, which was frozen by the traffic and lifted my hand to the driver who opened the bus door to allow me in. So off I went toward town. Somehow, every day seems to either begin or end with the Teatro Marcello. For those of you who don’t know, during high school I lived in a top floor apartment right across from the central synagogue in the Jewish Ghetto. The Rabbi lived two floors below us. To get to the bus stop to go to school, we had to walk through the Teatro Marcello every day. This is why that particular place in Rome is so important to me.

As the bus approached it I remembered the photos that we had taken before and remembered that the lighting wasn’t perfect when I captured the Teatro and the three columns in a single moment. So off I got, crossed the street and shot some photos of the theatre in the morning. Down the alleyway and soon I was passing the Fontana delle Tartarughe (the Turtle Fountain) again. I paused to contemplate it a little better and to see the expressions and the poses of the four boys on the fountain. Across Via Arenula and back to the Campo de' Fiori. I was finally in the neighborhood in the morning and I really wanted to see the Campo with all of the booths. Cool, this time it is there, I paused as I entered the piazza, Mahlon had mentioned visiting the wine bar because the guy with the big nose was still there. Well, I saw a place that said bar and had a lot of wine but the guy’s nose wasn’t so big. There was a Salsamenteria and I stuck my nose in but somehow even in Italy they don’t smell as good as the one on Columbus Street in San Francisco. The Forno next to the Carbonara was open! Actually there were two on either side of the little alley that goes off to the left of La Carbonara. I went straight across the length of the Campo to the one on the left and saw it was for pastry, back out to the one on the right and purchased my first piece of white pizza that didn’t taste like it was made last week. They still sold it by weight and it cost .95 Euro. Now I was happy and I wandered around the square eating the pizza and checking out what everyone was selling. These Italians are proud of the vegetables they are growing. Every box was labeled with what it was, that it was grown in Italy and how much it cost per Kilo. The artichokes were sold individually for one Euro or less; these were labeled as being ‘Romanas’ but one did have smaller artichokes for .50 Euros that came from somewhere else. The profusion of vegetables was amazing, they actually looked good enough to eat and thoughts of having a dinner with just veggies and bread went through my head, but not tonight. Tonight we are going to some special restaurant near the Vatican where Beatrice knows the owners. The vegetables seem very reasonably priced but the cheese on the other hand, wow. I saw some cheese that was labeled at 78 Euro a kilo and it seemed that all of it was at least 23 Euros a kilo. Same place had a little sausage labeled at 23 Euros each.

I wandered down Via dei Cappellari to take some pictures of the street and the arch that straddles it. I wanted to cross Ponte Sisto to get over to Trastevere so I was just wandering vaguely taking in the sites. Glancing at a window on Via Moserato I found myself in front of Hollywood Video. No not the American chain transplanted to Italy just as Blockbuster is but a little store that Renzo had told me would have L’Archidiavolo if it actually existed anywhere. He said it was near the Campo but I never would have found it if I had been looking for it. Obviously, after all of these years, and endless searching for it, I was meant to own a copy of this film. Turns out that Vittorio Gassman co-stars with Mickey Rooney and they had a copy. In my memory, this is a must see film. The devil is sent to earth to wreak havoc in Renaissance Italy. The reality was another thing. It did give me some chuckles but it was not as funny as I remembered.

Dinner at Emmanuele:

Mahlon called and so the narrative ends here.

There is a whole lot more to say... The following year we returned to Rome and went down to Positano and the Amalphi Coast so stay tuned for more.

Thursday February 15th:

Today was the big one, today we are being taken to the Vatican Museum by our hostess Beatrice. She has arranged with a friend of hers who is an official guide at the Vatican for us to receive a private tour. She is the tour guide of choice for CEOs and ambassadors from all over the world so we feel very privileged that she has chosen to give us her time.

It is pouring rain as we jamb ourselves into Beatrice’s extremely compact car, small even by Roman standards but it fits great on the sidewalks when there are no spots on the street. Traffic is a complete mess and Beatrice calls her friend to explain that we are on our way but slowed by the congestion. She is already there at the Vatican waiting for us. We arrive at the walls of the Vatican, the line stretches off behind us and we climb out to get in line while Beatrice finds a parking space nearby. We aren’t even on the street that has the entrance to the museum but I suspect that the street can’t be too far off. The line isn’t moving but the tail has a life of its own and it grows another fifty feet longer in a few minutes. After that I didn’t look back because the crush of the crowd made the rear of the line invisible. Turns out that the colorful umbrella that the Indian guy sold us on that first day wasn’t actually designed to be waterproof. As I glanced around I saw water beading up and shedding off other umbrellas around us but on ours, not beading up, I was experiencing a drip, drip on my forehead but in spite of that, it was still dryer under the umbrella than outside of it. I should have raised my hood but since I hadn’t, it filled with water to the point that it sloshed out down my back when I started walking.

The line did eventually start moving and Beatrice’s friend came out in the rain and joined us for a while. She was very nice and also very short. I’m not sure, I’ll have to ask Donna but she must have been under five feet tall, wore glasses and was very much alive in her old age. She was sparkly and fun and she identified us as just like teenagers who were newly in love. Donna and I quietly agreed that she reminded us of Yoda from the Star Wars movies. She left us and bought the tickets, the line moved forward and bit by bit we found ourselves flowing with the crowd through an opening in the vast walls of the Vatican. Another security checkpoint, this one more serious but my camera bypassed inspection again. I talked to our hosts later about security in Rome and they said it was a pain in the butt and should be dispensed with entirely. I guess they are more philosophical about the occasional bombing now and again.

Beatrice’s friend met us and led us in. She took us to a board in the lobby explaining that they don’t let you talk in the Sistine Chapel and so the museum has provided this instrument that scrolls through all of the paintings in the chapel as a teaching aid for the tour guides. This lady really knew her stuff! I wasn’t watching my watch but I have no doubt that we spent over an hour learning about the chapel from that teaching aid. There were two more of these in the museum but as she continued to talk, from time to time a group with a guide would come up waiting to assume the machine. She would always tell them that she had a ton more to say, or she had hardly even gotten going. She sent them off to find another machine because there was no way she was going to give this one up. Tours came and went at the other machines but still she continued to explain. I have no doubt that upon our return to the states; Donna and I will qualify as two of the leading experts on the Sistine chapel. She described herself as a layperson, but had attended conferences on that ceiling. She explained about the politics of the time, gave us a complete history of the development of Michelangelo and his style. Explained how he was almost blind after completing the ceiling. Then she went on to the wall that he did and how upset everyone was by all of the nudity, etc. Well, no point rehashing it all but she had a bunch to say. Eventually she finished and took us into the museum. She was great fun and a great guide. She was so small that she could dart between the crowd and we had to rush to catch up on many occasions. She showed us the stuff that she loved and explained about the things she cared about. Mostly antiquity; stuff which was also right up my alley. We took lots of pictures. She showed us a bathtub carved out of a single chunk of black marble, pretty cool. Then she left us to our own and took off. The good stuff was done with and all that was left was room after room of Raphael stuff and much, much more. Through 50 rooms of modern religious art and finally into the Sistine chapel. It was a grueling trek, but it really was worth it. And I know that I was seeing it for the first time all over again because of the lecture and education that we had received by that sweet old lady.

Exiting the Sistine Chapel we were swept toward the exit and we still hadn’t seen the Laocoon. This would not do. I asked where it was and was told that it is right near the entrance, the old lady had passed it right up. We were forced out the exit and the museum was closed for the day but the special exhibit of the Laocoon was free and would be opening in a few minutes. Seems like everywhere we go, things close up right behind us. The Laocoon was beyond description, I have always appreciated that statue, there is just so must expression on that face. They also had a very detailed model of the museum and I wanted to lift the roof to see if they had done the inside too.

Exiting the Vatican, the rain had stopped. We wandered out and down toward Octaviano and the Metro. Donna was worn out and needed recharging and we stopped someplace for a Gelato. This time I got Nociola and Banana (same as last time) but it wasn’t memorable. What was fantastic was the ‘fondente’ or dark chocolate ice-cream that Donna had. That gelato qualifies as a gastronomical wonder and I don’t think that I could find the place again. Donna wanted to eat and we went into one of the millions of pizza by the slice places. Well, did they see us coming. We were too close to the Vatican. Two slices of pizza and a bottle of water cost us 15 Euro if you can believe that. OK, the slices were large but I just had pizza bianca which should have been 2 Euro so the really did rob us blind.

We took the Metro to Piazza Flaminio (right behind Piazza del Popolo). Everything converges there. Trams, buses subway and train. Seems like you could get to anywhere from there. Stopped at a bar for two Cappuccinos but after the Vatican, recharging those batteries was problematic. Both of us had walked what seemed like a hundred miles. Even though I only brought comfortable shoes and switched them off each day, my feet were sore. I wanted to see the Borghese Gardens but they were up hill from where we were. There was a bus stop so we waited and got on a bus, the park was nice but we didn’t get off until we hit the top of Via Veneto. I told Donna that she had to see it, but the enthusiasm just wasn’t there. I told her the American Embassy was there and the first Mc Donalds had opened there when I was a kid. It was all down hill which is really what sold it and as we walked, we both felt a little better. At the bottom was Piazza Barberini. I wanted pictures of the fountain. Funny thing about Donna, she actually perks up when in the presence of a fountain. Or else she is connected to me and when I go up, so does she. This is probably the case; we are extremely simpatico with each other.

Well that was it, I couldn’t stand the thought of having to walk a foot further so we went down the stairs and caught the metro home.

Some of the Obelisks I saw inRome

A number of years ago at Alta Vista Gardens  Sprint came to us and asked to build a Cell Tower. Our idea for them was to do it in an Obelisk. It took almost two years to negotiate an agreement to get it built but it came out pretty well. As a result of this project, my interest in Obelisks was peaked and I proceeded to photograph obelisks wherever I went.

Top of the Spanish Steps & Piazza del Popoplo

The Elephant Obelisk

Saint Peter's Square

Piazza Navona