Venice

Leaning tower of Venice

The next day dawns even later. I roll out at a disgusting eleven o’clock, and when we finally do make our way into Venice, it is well into the noon hour. Throughout the day, we  wander throughout Venice, with little rhyme or purpose, frequently getting lost and found again. One thing that’s particularly quint about Italians, is the way they hang their laundry between buildings on their clotheslines. Somehow, they usually match the pastel colors of the buildings passing along a very pleasing aesthetic, completely unlike the dirty looking laundry that collects outside the windows of buildings in Asia.

Italian women are a particularly wonderful thing as well. Though they come in all shapes and sizes, a significantly larger proportion of the population believes in rather sheer clothing, and as a result, spend considerable time ensuring that their undergarments match their clothes as well as enhance their figure, it is a clothing choice I can support without hesitation.

Venice is a purely tourist destination. The entire city is built of stone and brick in the middle of the water, for what reason, I cannot quite fathom. The cost must have been outrageous, and even now, transportation of goods and trash into and out of the island city must be done entirely on foot, using wheelbarrows and carts that work up and down these ridiculous stepped bridges.

Besides all that, the typical gondolas, romantic singers and guitar players, Venice is a city of artisans. There are several universities devoted to art and architecture here in the city, and students run to and fro amongst the press of tourists. Every shop seems to be another artisan outlet, glass and bead works, sculpture shops, and venetian masks all compete for our attention. And the venetian masks are fantastic, each one is more elaborate then the next, commanding prices into the hundred of dollars, never before have I been particularly intrigued by venetian balls and the related costuming, but here, with the outfits resplendent in details and intricacy, I suddenly have the urge to concoct a mask of my own and attend one of these elaborate events. And concoct a mask I will have to, because while the female masks are all sorts of beautiful, the male masks are overwhelmingly boring and similar. Long nose, horse head, jester mask, these are the archetypes I apparently must play with, I will have to change it all up and throw in some Batman.

Venice graffiti

Euro geeks and bad BO

Piazzo Centrale in Firenze

Late. This air conditioned room in the heart of Florence hermetically sealed from the outside world has caused us to sleep in grossly. Our friends Meredith and John are on their way out to the airport to return to the states just as we make our way to checkout. A quick swap of travel books and some last minute tour advice, and we part ways. The morning is a wandering around to various false tourist attractions. The map says, Leonardo Da Vinci Musee, but apparently that means university or something, as tourists are not allowed. The market centrale is a nice change of pace from the usual assortment of historical landmarks, boasting a plethora of leather goods, and a diverse meat and produce market. The meat is particularly interesting; we find meticulously cleaned cow heads, and whole rabbits sans fur for sale.

Piazzo Centrale in Firenze

We wander down alleyways in a meandering fashion, back towards the south of Florence. We pop into the Medici palace flying the American colors the day before, and wander it’s cavernous interior filled with large marble statues of epic figures. A pair of wrestlers is particularly noticeable in that one of the wrestlers has a firm grasp on the other’s penis to extract whatever advantage he can. The next time a wrestler tries to talk his way out of the fact that wrestling is fruit filled fun, I’m going to show them this photograph.

Renaissance Statues

When we’re done we exit into a back alley, and run into a local snack shop offering; self serve wine and a small deli. The venue is packed with locals, and we stop in to see what the locals are eating. Quite a bit better then the tourists is my final verdict after eating a spicy eggplant with proscuitto on a panini, by far the most flavor I’ve enjoyed in this country so far.

By noon we’ve progressed back to the back alleys of the Pitti Palace. The complex is a sprawling mess of art galleries and gardens. The gardens prove to be a hot, unkept, and largely unimpressive collection whose only redeeming factor is some of the better views of the city. We pass the Belevedere fort, which is closed, apparently because two people died in the same spot due to mysterious causes. Supposedly, dogs and cats have died or had various maladies when around this specific location over the years as well, and so protesters have forced the government’s hand and had this location closed, perhaps permanently.

Back in the city proper, we wander around seeking gelato, and by chance stumble into a popsicle vendor instead who boasts popsicles made from the very highest quality organic fruit puree we are assured. Which is fine by me, as they prove to be some of the best popsicles I’ve ever encountered.

A block away from the Duomo, we run into a bona fide geek shop, packed with Magic: The Gathering cards, Warhammer 40K figurines, and Dungeon and Dragon books. Magic cards go for a pretty euro, and I find myself wondering if I could get a better price on my ancient collection in Europe then in the States. In the back, I come across a guy and girl playing some western game I vaguely recall. In front the display is packed with Harry Potter wands. Harry and Ron’s are the most expensive, until I spot Dolores Umbridge’s wand, a disgusting affair that looks more like a dildo then a wand, it rests on a disgustingly pink and gold display unit, and I suddenly recall how revolting the character was in the movies. What is just as disgusting however, is the amount of funk coming off these geeky Italian men. Euros often display a pride in BO that is unheard of in the States, and here, you combine geeky funk with Euro BO, and the stench is overwhelming. Bee Jin made a cursory once through the shop before the smell assaulted her senses and she’s waiting outside. When I finally am without, she asks incredulously.

“Do you not smell that?”

“Oh I smell it all right,” I reply, wiping a tear from my eye. “But I’m white, so I can tolerate  it a bit longer then you. Still, disgusting.” I agree.

Dante’s church and quiet parts of eastern Florence wrap up our tour, and we return to the train station for our journey to Venice. The train is a modern EuroStar affair, the fastest of the TrainItalia trains, and I am somewhat disgruntled by the fact that it’s so late and I cannot witness our speed. Instead all I get is the popping of ears and pressure as we roar through the Italian countryside.

Dante's Church

We get off in Venice, but apparently one stop too early, so the cab ride to our hotel is a bit more ridiculous then it need be. The Hilton we’ve checked into is very nice, with Aeron chairs and real double beds of excellent comfort. Up until this point, every bed we’ve been in has been two twin beds that are pushed together to create a double for couples, or pulled apart for singles such as ourselves. For each of us to have a full sized double bed is an unlooked for luxury. Outside we wait for the bus that will take us into Venice proper. It is here I spot my first prostitute, waiting at the gas station across the street. Her pimp drives up, and then drives off, and suddenly I have a revelation why I’ve seen so few prostitutes in all my travels. I stay at hotels which are neither nasty enough for prostitutes, nor fancy enough for them. Here, at the Hilton, suddenly is a venue where work is probably easy enough to find, with accommodations to match.

Venice is a maze of stepped bridges and stone streets. I watch people maneuver luggage up and down the stepped bridges, some of recent construct, and can only wonder why nobody uses smooth, sloping bridges. Dinner is a pizza, at some chain looking establishment. I get some pizza that promises to be death on a plate, as evidenced by the skull and crossbones accompanying the hotness rating of the pizza. It’s delightfully flavorful, and of robust body compared to the other Italian pizzas I’ve had so far. The heat is a long way from death on a plate, but it is hot enough that I know that the next day is going to be rather uncomfortable in the restroom. We do a quick run through of Venice in the dark, but arrive at our bus stop just as the last bus is pulling away from the evening, and are forced to take another expensive cab back to our hotel at the mainland. There, as we pass each gas station, I see a pair of working girls, waiting for a John, and take amusement in witnessing a glimpse of the seedy underbelly of Venice.

Urine discipline.

Duomo

The next morning we pack into John and Meredith’s rental Fiat, a small little Panda which barely accommodates the four of us and our luggage in Tetris fashion. For a day, our paths will coincide to the nearby city of Florence, and we partake in a short road trip through the Tuscany countryside with our LA neighbors. The main highways are all toll roads in Italy, and are well maintained and serviced as a result. Rest stops loom above the highway and are well equipped with shops and eateries in the latest fashion. Restrooms don’t have seats however, so suddenly one must engage the quad muscles in a hover fashion like women over the basin in order to complete one’s business.

Florence is a warm, typical mediterranean looking city has more resemblance to a living museum then anything else, it’s apartments built up solidly some three to four stories, betraying the population density and sophistication that existed in this city six hundred years before. It is warm though, resembling east LA in climate, and the Italians are suitably tanned as a result. Indeed, I run across “gone tanning” signs in shop windows, whether in mockery or sincerity I can’t tell, but it does underly the truth of the country.

We set to explore the city and sites, and immediately are oppressed by the overwhelming presence of the Duomo, which I take to mean two domes. Apparently, there is an inner dome, and an outer dome, one supporting the other. The Duomo is a gothic cathedral done in particularly vibrant colors, even garish by gothic standards. Though the structure is impressive in the extreme, I feel that something is missing by the fact that it rests on ground level with the street, something of this size and massiveness feels deserving of some sort of raised structure to accommodate the structure appropriately.  The structure is incredibly huge, a massive Renaissance block of marble and brick that boasts the first dome in the world completed since the fall of the Roman empire some one thousand years before.

We pause for a moment in a crowded square next to a Medici palace of some sort, it’s a curious looking thing, part church, part palatial apartments, and part fort, the entire structure defies immediate classification. Even more confusing, the structure boasts an Italian and European Union flag… With a US flag flying high above.

“What in the world is our flag doing up there?” I ask bewilderedly.

“Haven’t you heard of 9/11?,” John replies. I facepalm stupidly, unable to believe I’ve forgotten, and impressed that the Italians haven’t.

The Leonardo museum is a rather lame affair, but the Galileo museum makes up for it, packed with intricate scientific instruments that led to the verification of a heliocentric universe. Here we also witness elaborate wax sculptures of complicated childbirths made more then two hundred years before. The dawn of modern anatomy comes with particularly brutal visualizations of forceps inserted into the vagina to enable extraction of difficult births. The procedures and tools seem barely helpful, and gives explanation to the necessity of cesarian section.

Eventually it’s late in the afternoon, and we stop for beer and pizza. The beer is italian, so is nothing special in nature, but in the sweltering Tuscany heat, is well appreciated, and strangely, as the trip progresses, I come to prefer Moretti’s particularly unimpressive heritage. A full liter goes down my gullet, with an unsatisfying margarita pizza that I expected to resemble some sort of caprese but instead has more in common with a basic cheese pizza.

We leave to view the Pitti Palace, but are disappointed when we find it closed; it is at this point that my bladder comes knocking, hard. The party decides that we need to head back to our hotel, and by the end of the journey, my bladder is so distended that I’m sweating bullets from every pore in my body, trying to dissipate the excess moisture. The self-discipline pays off, and I make it to a urinal in time but the relief is so relaxing, that I pass out back in the hotel after the hair raising experience. Note to self, holding a liter of liquid in your body for sixty minutes is about as exhausting as any sexual activity I’ve ever performed. Bee Jin is much amused by the whole performance, especially when she reveals that I’m running around with a map of all the public restrooms in Florence after the fact.

When I do come to, we head out to dinner, another mediocre experience. The server tries to sell us on secondis and what have you, but I’m unwilling to pursue mediocrity further, and stick to putting the minimal amount of food into my gullet. Gelato and small meals is my formula at this point. Though not the largest fan of ice cream and sweets, my grading scale is a lot less critical at the moment, and the sweet coolness is a relief in the heat that follows us around the living museum.

Florence at sunset

A Tuscany Wedding

Old Cameras

Wedding day. Dense clouds enshroud the valley below, and a thick dew covers the otherwise dry hills. I stack in breakfast and wait for Brian’s cousin to come pick me up to take me to the wedding preparations at the villa. JP arrives shortly, and we fruitlessly do a brief search for a grocery store of some sort, as the villa is without supplies, and people are anticipating breakfast. Instead, JP makes a run out into the villa’s garden and scrounges up whatever presents itself to a makeshift breakfast. Cabbage and tomato salad with scrambled eggs and peppers is the menu and nobody complains, though I’m quite happy to have tucked in handsomely at my own hotel previously.

Wedding preparations for myself resemble the army with a hurry up and wait attitude. Now that I’m actually at the villa, there seems no press for me to be there at all, and I doze off by the pool while the wedding chaos swirls around me. And chaos it is, the villa is as remote as any destination in my homestate of Wyoming, on top of a remote ridge, accessible only by a treacherous gravel dirt road that twists and turns, and denies many of the italian vehicles passage as they stall out on the steep road.

The wedding planner seems to be a particular problem, strong language follows almost any phone conversation with her, and I am particularly glad that it’s not my problem. “Don’t have a wedding in Italy,” Alyssa advises, the bride to be passing on her hard learned intelligence.

Eventually the wedding commences, me in my tuxedo playing the role of usher in this bridal party, amid a fantastic landscape harboring an extravagant villa. The decorations are rather amazing, the piles and piles of flowers rivaling nothing I’ve seen since the day my uncle was wed some twenty years ago to a senator’s daughter (niece?) in Washington DC. The day however is murderously warm, and rivers of sweat run down my chest in the confines of my three piece.

Something hitches in the chamber orchestra. Our wedding party is extremely short, and the orchestra keeps repeating their last page of music because the wedding planner hasn’t communicated to them that the wedding procession has ended. The music drags on and on, the orchestra looking more and more desperate as nobody comes up, Alyssa in full bridal garb getting more and more frustrated as her bridal music has not played to allow her to process down the aisle. Eventually, Alyssa’s sister takes charge, informing them to change the music, and Alyssa finally makes her appearance, resplendent in a mermaid style bridal dress. For the rest of us, it is a relief that things can move on, as mascara melts in the afternoon heat, and the flower petals we’re supposed to shower the bride and groom with are rapidly wilting.

When they are finally wed, they take off for their pictures, and the rest of us lounge around, drinking strange orange Italian drinks, and eating fancy h’ordeurs. Here I get to watch two families attempting to interact as they’re brought together in the periphery of marriage. A couple characters instantly stand out amongst the family. Paul, is Brian’s stepdad, and is a self-admitted redneck from Alabama. He’s got a stash of beer in the fridge which he indulges in frequently, and I take an instant liking to the fellow and his rustic edges. In many ways, his unease with the unknown, in food, drink, and Italy, are something I can empathize with in my own Wyoming roots. Though I’ve long since moved on in my regard for the world, I sense a comforting colloquialism in Paul’s mannerisms and world outlook. The other character is Larry, Brian’s birth father. The man has a lazy eye that Brian has inherited slightly, but his conversation and history make for fascinating listening, and I am entertained by his stories, and large heart laced with scar tissue from an emotionally strained life.

Finally, late in the evening, the bride and groom return, allowing the jazz set to leave, and for us to proceed to our wedding dinner. A sumptuous spread is put before us, filet mignon, lobster, and an excellent pasta in a well reduced sauce, a spread of red and white wines, and an abundance of champagne. Even the bread here is good, which is a surprise, as for the past few days, I have been entirely underwhelmed by Italian bread, which up to this point I’ve considered to be bland and without character whatsoever.

As dinner ends, we make our way to the opposite side of the building for the wedding cake. A very modern affair, which is enhanced by a spread of fireworks; this has now officially gotten to be quite the extravagant event.

And also the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Apparently we were supposed to get an extravagant fireworks show, as opposed to the merely dazzling one, and Aylssa’s tensions with the wedding planner comes to a head, the yelling brought indoors as various members of the family try to assist the situation.

For the rest of us, there is wedding cake, and ridiculously sumptuous desserts that I dig into to ignore the war going on inside. Eventually the wedding planner leaves in a flurry of shouts, doing their best to avoid a stall out on the road outbound and having to face the disgrace of coming back to face Alyssa.

The mood has dipped considerably, but we patch that up with a flurry of shots and moves on the dance floor. Larry now busts out his hidden weapon, the man is quite well versed in many forms of dance, and he leads many a woman out onto the floor, schooling them on the floor right and left. I haven’t put this much effort into dancing since the last wedding a year ago, but I discover that tuxedo shoes slip and slide on the dance floor, making previously unobtainable dance moves suddenly easy, although treacherous as more then once I almost end up on my face.

The night finally ends with Alyssa and Brian diving in full wedding regalia into the pool, much to my shock. I’m strongly tempted to follow suit, but refrain as I don’t want to take the spotlight off the bridal couple, nor am I particularly interested in racking up additional charges on my rental tuxedo in the event of inadvertently ruining something beyond repair.

Tuscany Sunset

A pointless drive in a Panda.

Morning in Tuscany

Sunlight streams into the open windows of my bedroom, accented by the coo of pigeons and the morning crow of a nearby rooster. The entire rustic scene is quite delightful, and  I wallow in the golden light of morning till the nearby church bells peal eight bells.
Breakfast is provided by the hotel, and I dine on a pleasant supply of croissants and fresh fruit; the latter of which is delightfully ripe. As midday approaches, John, Meredith and I make an effort to reach Siena, some 70km away over twisting mountain roads. The tiny Fiat Panda struggles over the hills under John’s expert control, and we join the parade of tiny cars, darting in between trucks and marveling at the suddenly large proportions of an Audi A3 that passes us every once in a while.

Siena, proves too much for our itinerary, and we stop at a random restaurant at a random town in the middle of nowhere to grab our midday meal. Meredith and I order the menu del gierno, which proves to be a large order of random things that we don’t quite understand. After we order, Meredith pulls out her phrase book and we make the realization that I had just ordered a plate of “boiled meat.” Which later turns out to be veal boiled in a lemon sauce. The pasta ragu is welcome, as the past two days have been the meager affair of airplane food, but the boiled veal in lemon sauce proves to be too much, as does the insalata, which is a dismal affair with only oil and vinegar to serve as dressing. Like the day before, the lettuce is an old and bitter plate of fail.

The server takes personal offense to our not cleaning our plates, and I wonder if we’ll always have to vacuum our food to avoid the hurt puppy dog eyes in the future. We take our leave, and head back in the direction we came, leaving the random stop in the middle of Siena province.

Our next stop is a remote villa where the wedding will be held, the next hill over from our own hotel. We navigate a treacherous gravel road towards a grand manse next to a pool overlooking the valley. Within we find our friends who are to get married on the morrow, along with their extended the family. The property is a rustic affair with all the trappings of modernity. Apparently the property it sits on, and the surrounding country side, is a historical landmark; purposely tilled and planted, the entire area is done in such a matter since the 14th century to fulfill the aesthetic needs of painters. The property itself boasts a pool with a sauna and underground shower, and I take the opportunity to take advantage of the facilities in the warm midday sun.

Shuttles are supposed to run from the main road, back to the villa, and we all watch amusedly as they struggle with the hill and sharp cutbacks. The bride and groom are my friends Brian and Alyssa, and they’re struggling with unwanted last minute woes. The wedding planner has charged them twice, and despite getting the charge removed from their credit card, the charge is coming back time and time again, despite frustrated phone conversations. Nothing like arguing money in a foreign language to make one frustrated.

Rehearsal Dinner

In the evening, we partake in a rehearsal dinner back at our own hotel at il Poggio. Though the meal is scheduled for 6:30 to take advantage of the golden hour for photos, numerous holdups ensure that the party does not arrive till an hour later, well into blue hour. Everyone looks sharp and dapper, Alyssa looks particularly stunning in a modern white gown of some sort that I could never hope to identify and we all sit down to enjoy the best that Il Poggio offers. The food is all local, hand crafted on the spot, and is indeed one of the best meals I’ve had in Italy so far.

And while all the vegetables are hand picked right here on the property, I wonder if Italians ever heard of salad dressing, what would they think when I put a bottle of “Italian” salad dressing in front of them, or better, a big ol crock of ranch? The appetizer is a spread of assorted cured meats and local baked bread. The main course is a pasta in spicy sauce, which is well reduced, but hardly spicy. The pasta is handmade, and while the unevenness of the fat noodles is particularly quaint, it’s hard to say that they’re particularly better then any other pasta I’ve ever had, except perhaps for the roughness of their texture, and how it allows them to absorb sauces better then the machined pastas we are typically used to. That being said, I’m a fan of angel hair pasta, that fine, delicate strand of pasta that requires the sweet precision of machines to create. Thank goodness for the tomato, to think that Italians probably used half a dozen ingredients for over a thousand years, and when the tomato was brought over from the new world, they suddenly had seven.

The wine flows freely into the evening, as everyone gets to know each other, raucous stories are traded, and the laughter intrudes on whatever delicate affair the Italians on vacation are used to. Though some of our party hints that this night could go on well into the evening, we all bid adieu, as we all seek some shut eye before anticipation of the big event that looms before us on the morrow.

Roma

Airlines on the bad list. Alaska Airlines, US Airways, North Korean Air.

Airlines on the better list: Frontier, Virgin, Cathay Pacific, Dragon Air, Asiana

So the flight to Italy is on US Airways, which is a resounding disappointment. The planes are old, the service is skimpy, the inflight entertainment is largely nonexistent, and the seats are small to the point that I can’t even stuff my carryon underneath. Boooo…

But there is some small consolation, I’m starting to be able to sleep on planes a bit. Not for long stretches, and not very easily, but I can succumb to exhaustion on planes finally, and that’s something to be excited about I suppose. Actually, that’s a huge improvement. One of the benefits of getting old I spose?

Rome International is something of a disappointment as well. In fact, LAX just barely beats it out for the lousiest first world airport I’ve been to to date. Italian customs is a joke, the passport agent waves me through with just a brief question of my destination, no stamp, nothing. Next time I’m bringing a bunch of invasive species just to teach the Romans that Gauls are not the only invading hoard they have to worry about.

Rome countryside is rather underwhelming as well. Though you’d expect a feeling of antiquity to permeate the experience, you instead just feel like everything is run down. Concrete cracks, graffiti proliferates, weeds run rampant tearing up mortar and brick. Out the train window, a tall weed that looks like corn covers the immediate landscape entirely. The train itself is less then amazing. A dirty old thing, the seats don’t recline, and the train is neither fast nor amazing despite being an express train to Rome’s city center. In fact comparatively speaking, this train ranks far below China’s trains, and in some cases comes in below even the trains I ran with in Vietnam. Somewhat disconcerting considering that you expect a first world experience in Rome.

Between the news of Italy’s economic woes, and the personal anecdotes of the complete lack of jobs in Italy, I suppose it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise however that Italy is on the slump. There is no economic thirst, no vigor to this landscape. The middle age workforce is missing from the picture. No where do I see the professional business casual one might see anywhere in the US or Asia, the tell tale sign of the working professional, the wage maker of the economic infrastructure. No office buildings, no manufacturing buildings. Instead, I see the elderly, and the young; this, it would appear is what a service economy looks like.

The central Rome Terminal is a bustling affair of tourists however, and I wander around aimlessly, trying to recall how to get to my destination, or even recall what my destination is. Maps appear to be in short supply in this country, and it is only through my tour book that I finally puzzle out where I need to go. It has been a long day already however, and I’m famished so I find a self serve cafe in the train station and help myself to a fruit salad and cobb salad, and am entirely distressed to find the salad dry and bitter, with no hit of dressing anywhere in the establishment. I eat the food mechanically, pushing nutrients and calories down without enjoyment, until I can withstand the awful flavor no longer and push the bowl of disgusting aside.

My hunger temporarily quelled, I move along to a travel agency to get help to my destination, a little town called Chiusi. The travel agent assists me well enough alternating between english and italian in an easy back and forth manner that I pick up the intent if not the exact meaning. This train is no more impressive then the Leonardo express that brought me here from the airport, the on board restroom looking like a sad imitation of a Vietnamese first class water closet. It is at this point I decide that I’ll never run down Amtrak or our domestic train systems again. For all their failures, and our lack of funding of the system, they are quite a bit more palatable then this decrepit railway that holds Italy together. Though I wish to watch the landscape, and am fearful of missing my stop, sleep hits like a ton of bricks, and I nap fitfully throughout the ride.

I disembark at Chiusi with little affair, and am plagued by the need to use the restroom, and here I find something I’ve never encountered before; a bathroom attendant, who appears to make this her very real and possibly even state sanctioned job. I can’t tell for certain if you’re supposed to tip her, or if the fee was 50 cents, but in any case I give her 50 cents to avoid any potential disapproval.

I wander around the train station in a ghost town, looking for a car rental. Here I am thwarted however; the town is dead beyond belief because I’ve arrived right during the lunchtime break. In the states, I would expect all the workers to go to cafes and the like for their midday meal. I am at a loss where everyone goes during their midday break here, which judging by the signs last between 2 and 3 hours a day, and shutters the town in its entirety.

I shrug and take a cab instead, not eager to hang around the train station for an extra 2 hours just to rent a car. The cab driver has a limited english vocabulary, and I have an even more limited grasp of the italian language, so our journey and communication is basic and quiet. However the cab driver goes to great pains to communicate to me that he is going to pass a slow moving truck by going into on coming traffic, and not to be alarmed. I nod my understanding and acquiescence, he revs the tiny car as fast as it’s little motor will go and we pass the truck without incident. I am however, terribly bemused at how apologetic the cabbie is that he had to perform the maneuver. I wonder if he’s trying to repair a sullied reputation amongst Italian cabbies, or if he simply gets a lot of extraordinarily timid english speaking passengers.

The landscape moves to golden rolling hills with holdfasts on top of any major hill, and a close collection of buildings around it. The hotel I’m staying at is the Il Poggio, and it proves to be an epic little retreat with a commanding view of the landscape around it. Though I am deathly tired, I resolve to continue the day, hoping to combat jet lag and win. I walk up a nearby hill with a cluster of stone and brick buildings. The avenues have steps, and are much too small for any motor vehicle, and betray its ancient heritage. Here there are picture opportunities galore. The perfect, typical Roman landscape is preserved entirely. I can’t wait to take my camera out on the morrow, as today, my eyes are so shot I am having trouble merely focusing on the simple objects in front of me.

The hotel grounds are home to a startling number of cats, all sunning themselves luxuriantly in the warm Tuscany sun. On a distant hillside, the hotel’s equestrian farm can be seen, and closer, a pair of women have chatted for hours about nothing in the shade of a cafe.

My friends Meredith and John have arrived in the late evening, and we take our supper at a small restaurant that advertises pizza as their speciality. I make an order of chicory greens out of pure curiosity, the only knowledge I have of the substance is that the roots can be roasted to make a poor imitation of coffee. The greens turn out to be a disappointment, but whether it’s because of the greens themselves, or the shoddy way they are boiled and dumped on a plate with a wedge of lemon, I couldn’t say. The pizza is decidedly mediocre, whisper thin and displaying neither the visual or sensual complexity I have become accustomed to in even my own creations. Day one of my culinary adventure in Italy is decidedly a disappointment.