Random Thoughts on Italy

I planned to spend a lot of time in Italy – I wanted it to be one of the big stops of my trip. In fact when I was thinking about where I wanted to go I tried to concentrate on places that made me go “Oooooooo….” when I saw them on the map and Italy made me go “Oooooooo….” in a big way. By the time I step onto the boat for Greece I will have been in Italy for about 3 weeks so naturally there are a few things I that didn’t make it into a longer post. And here we go:

- Though it only merited a brief mention in my post on Rome, I did go to the Vatican. I even saw the Pope! I arrived (unintentionally) in time for the tail-end of his weekly Wednesday address out in St. Peter’s Square. There were about 7 zillion chairs set up in a special fenced off area, but the whole square is so huge that they only took up a small part. There were also big video screens off to the side showing his face, and he was speaking German. And despite the fact that His Holiness was so far away they could have substituted him for a talking match- head and I wouldn’t have noticed, it was still pretty cool.

See? That’s him – the infinitely tiny white smudge in the middle of the dais.

- It doesn’t have much to do with Italy in particular, but my Eurail pass expired on October 15th (the day before I got on the train from Venice to Firenze, naturally). And for future reference – it did NOT pay off having a rail pass. I bought the “15 days of travel within 3 months” version, which cost somewhere around €800.00. This means I needed to spend about €53.00 on each trip I used the pass for. Though I stopped keeping careful track, I’m pretty sure I only spent about €650 in total. This is mostly because though I did have a few very long trips, especially the overnight ones, I mostly made a lot of short hops. In fact, the same ended up being true for my Britrail pass (back a thousand years ago when I was in the UK). I’m not saying a rail pass in never a good investment, I’m just recommending you think carefully about where you’re going and how you’re planning on travelling before you invest. In Italy, for instance, the trains are quite cheap, but I hear that in Germany they can be ferociously expensive. Just think about, that’s all I’m saying.

- Here’s something I didn’t mention about the Colosseum: Lots of it looks like it’s made out of Swiss cheese. There are big holes in the stones all over, like it was attacked by giant stone-chewing gerbils or something.

See?

It turns out this is because when it was built they used iron pins to key together the big blocks of stone. When the Roman Empire fell in the 5th or 6th century (yeah… whenever…), people were understandably more concerned about defending themselves against the barbarian hordes than preserving the then-abandoned Colosseum so they chiseled into the stones along the seams, extracted the iron pins, and melted them down to make weapons. I asked my guide what holds the stones together now, since the pins are gone. She assured me that the weight of the building holds everything in place, and it’s now been standing for about 1500 years since the vandalism, so I guess I believe her.

- I’m truly sorry I did not get a picture of this, but the train police in Verona were on Segways! I saw a pair of them on the platform while waiting for the train to Padua; they were rolling along, checking in the windows of the trains. I’m not sure why, but it seemed perfectly ridiculous. I’ve got a strange love-hate thing with Segways: I think it must be fun to be on one, but I also think they look preposterous. It made the police in Padua look like they were part of an Affirmitive Action Program for Mobility-Impaired Law Enforcement Officers (AAPMILEO). And I couldn’t help but think that all a ne’er-do-well would have to do to escape their clutches would be to run up or down the nearest flight of stairs. Then again I’ve also seen quite a few companies offering city tours on Segways, and that would probably be loads of fun.

- My tour of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel was thanks to a hashing friend I met the night before who actually runs a tour company! He generously set me up on one of his guided tours, so I am happy to plug him here to my 7 or 8 loyal GSRED readers: When in Rome, please go see the Vatican with Italywithus.com. And tell Adrian thanks from me. And here’s a little tidbit from my guide of that day, who was excellent: The Vatican Museums house so many pieces of art that if you were to glance for just 60 seconds at each one, it would take you twelve years to get through the whole place.

A fresco in one of the many Stanze di Rafaello

- I’ve had the chance to play a bit of pool while on this trip – in Holland, France, Portugal, and also in Italy. I am by no means a skilled pool player, but I’m also not complete rubbish. However in Italy I, and everyone I was playing with, were utterly hopeless. This is because the tables were approximately the size of a soccer pitch, and the pockets were exactly one micron wider than the diameter of the balls. It doesn’t really show in the picture, but trust me, if that table was the standard in Italy you would not want to play pool with an Italian on a standard bar-sized North American pool table.

Trust me on this one.

- Daylight Savings Time ended the Saturday night/Sunday morning that I arrived in Rome. (They still use the last-Sunday-in-October schedule over here.) This means that it starts getting dark around 5:30pm, making it almost impossible to go for a run after a day of sight-seeing and before dinner. I may be getting pretty comfortable running in new and random places every other day, but I really don’t fancy trying to run and navigate and dodge traffic in the dark. It’s a drag.

- SPQR, meaning Senatus Populusque Romanus ("The Senate and the People of Rome" or "The Senate and Roman People"). I think of it as something written on the flags of Roman Legions marching off to conquer the world a few thousand years ago. It turns out it's also the motto of the modern city of Rome. It's all over. Like, for instance, here:

- Again, it doesn't have a lot to do with Italy in particular, but I came into possession of a Lonley Planet Italian Phrasebook when I arrived, and I have to say that it’s perfectly excellent, and much more fun than the Eyewitness Russian Phrasebook I had. For instance the Eyewitness did not have a section devoted exclusively to romance, including the phrase “Neanche se to fossi l’ultima persona sulla terra!”. I’d really like to find an LP Phrasebook for Greece.

- As I mentioned, there are ruined Roman antiquities all over the place in Rome, but the thing I found surprising is that they are almost all built out of red brick. I was expecting to see a lot of big chunks of white marble, but the Romans were much too practical and tight-fisted for that. Bricks were cheap, easy to manufacture on site and (compared to solid stone) relatively lightweight. Most of the Colosseum is brick, and a lot of the ruins in the Forum are too. Often they built out of brick and then faced buildings with more expensive stone. The seats in the forum used to be covered in marble slabs, and the Pantheon used to have marble veneer panels on its pediment. (It also used to have bronze panels on the ceiling of the portico which were removed by Pope Urban VIII of the Barberini family, who had them melted down to make part of the altar at St. Peter’s, and a load of cannons. This gives rise to a saying that goes something like: “What the barbarians didn’t do to Rome, the Barberinis did”.)

Brick underneath, and stone for the fancy bits

- Finally, I have to point out that there’s a chain of grocery stores in Italy called Pam!* Look:

And now it’s on to Greece! The trip from Taranto to Athens is a long one involving trains and boats and maybe buses, and certainly lots of waiting and probably frustration and likely a sleepless night. And there will almost certainly be very little internet so don't be alarmed if there's some stoney silence ahead. But at the end there will be another new country (#11), another new language (#9) and even another new alphabet (#3). Stay tuned for news on the marathon, and the ouzo, and the baklava, and hopefully an idyllic Greek island, and a day or two of post-marathon dabbling of toes into crystal blue Mediterranean waters.

* This goes along with the manhole covers in France, which must be made by a particularly clever and talented foundry:

4 hours and 22 minutes in Cassino with Sergeant E.C. Nichol

My time in Cassino did not go precisely as planned. I wanted to arrive from Rome early in the afternoon and have a chance to freshen up and relax at my hotel before walking to the Cassino War Cemetery to pay my respects to my other great-uncle lost in the Second World War, Sergeant Everett Clinton Nichol. Then I was going to wander into town and have a nice dinner before retiring to my private hotel room for a relaxing, early night.

The first problem started when the LP turned out to be uncharacteristically silent on the entire subject of Cassino, despite the fact that there's a well known monastery at Monte Cassino right up the hill from the town. In fact, I was so surprised that there wasn’t even a listing for the city that I think I went back and checked the index three or four times before finally admitting to myself that the beloved LP had failed me.

The monastery at the top of the hill, which I did not climb (grape vines in the foreground).

So I was on my own. Undaunted, I managed to locate the cemetery on Google maps and found some information that seemed to indicate it was only about 2km from the train station. Then I hit Google again to find a hotel and ended up making a reservation at Hotel Diana (which I accomplished entirely in infant-level Italian, thank you very much.) So I arrived in Cassino on the 12:51 train from Roma Termini and set off in the direction of the hotel. I was pleased when I came upon this sign, because it all seemed to tally with my memory of the Google map.

All according to plan

And that’s when things started to go awry. It turns out that the scale of the Google map in my head was perhaps more ambitious that I realized. And the Aeronaut was a might weighty, and the sun was a touch warm, and the sidewalk was ever-so-slightly non-existent. And on I trudged, with no map, and almost no language skills, and an increasing level of frustration. I stopped several times to ask for directions and each time I was directed further and further down the road and kept hearing phrases like “autostrada” and “lontano”. It seems that Cassino has a Via Raccordo Ausonia and a Via Prov.le Ausonia and a Via Ausonia Nuova. Naturally it turned out that the hotel was on the one farthest from the station down a busy highway. Finally I gave up. I’m sorry Hotel Diana, but if you had been in the same time zone as the rest of Cassino, I would have been happy to darken your door. Then I had another trudge through the area around the station and could not find one single hotel, which is extremely bizarre. Cassino must be the only hotel in Western Europe with no hotels near the station.

So I sat down and had a calzone and a beer and regrouped. I checked the departures list at the station and determined that trains to Naples were frequent that afternoon and evening. And I phoned the hostel in Naples and moved my reservation up a night. And then I hoisted the Aeronaut once again and headed off for the cemetery, which turned out to be easy to find and actually was about 2km from the station, as advertised.

The entrance to the cemetery

In some ways it was very much like the Beny-sur-Mer cemetery in France. It was quiet and tidy and seemed to be well-tended. And there were rows and rows and rows of gravestones from all over the commonwealth. Unlike Beny-sur-Mer, though, it’s kind of smack in the middle of the city, or at least surrounded by busy roads and some businesses and some semi-rural residential stuff.

The livestock next door to the cemetery

I didn’t have as much documentation to help me find the grave I was looking for as I did in France, but the Canadian Virtual War Memorial website has an excellent search function that made it really easy to determine exactly where I needed to look. Section 5, Row B, Grave 21.

And due to the foresight of my personal assistant (Winnipeg Division), I had another Canadian flag patch to leave at the grave site. Thanks Karen. I really feel it was important to leave something tangible behind.

Unlike Beny-sur-Mer, there was no cemetery register available and no book of remembrance to sign. The website says that frequent vandalism means these are only available when the gardener is present, and those hours apparently didn’t mesh with my schedule. I think it’s disgusting that something as simple and important as a register of war dead can’t be kept out for fear or it being stolen or defaced. I mean, really.

I wandered around and took some more pictures, and enjoyed the feeling of not having a 45 pound pack on my back. And I sat near the grave and tried to think about what it must have been like to be a 35-year old Saskatchewan farm boy-turned Royal Canadian Engineer landing in Italy in 1944. In fact, Sergeant Nichol enlisted in 1939 and was shipped overseas within ten months. He served in England, Sicily and mainland Italy before he was killed in action on May 23, 1944. And now you know almost as much about him as I do, which is sad; he should have been part of my life. It wasn't as emotional as my trip to Beny-sur-Mer, but maybe that's because it wasn't all new.

At least the views from the cemetery are really lovely, with Monte Cassino in the background, and other mountains surrounding.

Also unlike the grave at Beny-sur-Mer, which was for an uncle on my grandmother’s side of the family, this was my father’s father’s brother. Consequently, that was my name on the gravestone. It was striking. I actually pulled out the copy of my passport I carry around and held it up to the stone and looked at the names. Nichol… Nichol. It felt a bit weird, but it also made me proud and really glad I’d come. It was like I could feel how we were connected.

And then I shouldered my pack again and bid farewell to Uncle Everett and turned my face towards the station and the 17:13 train to Naples. I feel badly that the trip turned out to be a more of pitstop than a pilgrimage, but I’m still glad I went. I hope it’s not important how long I was there, but that I was there at all. That someone was there.

Once again, there’s really nothing I can say to sum up except thank you. Thank you Sergeant Everett C. Nichol. You make me proud to share your name.

Rest in peace.

Sergeant Everett Clinton Nichol

Pick of Pics - The Vatican

St. Peter's Basilica

Roma

Here’s the thing about Rome: it’s been here for a really long time. Romulus settled down around 753 BC, and the Roman Republic was founded in 509 BC. And it’s not like the ancient Romans were particularly concerned about preserving their own history. Like us in modern society, they tore things down and re-built over old things and used the stones from one temple to build a new temple and so on. People have been building and tearing down and rebuilding and abandoning and reclaiming and thoroughly inhabiting the place for about 2700 years. This means that just about everywhere you turn in Rome is a mix of modern and ancient, which can be incongruous and startling and fantastic. What can I say? Rome is a city of contrasts.

For instance, the Colosseum looks like the ancient Romans built it in the middle of a roundabout. And the Area Sacrea di Largo Argentina is, as the LP says, “more of a traffic hub than an historic monument.” Discovered in 1926, it’s sunk about 20’ lower than the current street level and covers a city block. The site contains the remains of four Roman temples and a paved square and is apparently the spot where Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 BC - “Et tu Brute” and the Ides of March and all that. It also includes an impressive collection of feral cats, and convenient bus and tram connections to the rest of the city. There’s stuff like that all over. I walked a lot, and I kept stumbling on chunks of marble columns tucked away in vacant lots.

See what I mean? Ruins, buses, buildings...

It's a a bit like that at the Forum. My visit to there was… confusing. It’s a huge site – it must be acres and acres of ruins, incongruously surrounded by a bustling, modern city. I got the audioguide but (as I Tweeted) it was less-than-impressive*. The commentary was very good, but it was virtually impossible to tell which particular heap of ruined what-not the friendly voice was talking about (and let’s remember that I’m not some wet-behind-the-ears audioguide neophyte - I’ve practically got an advanced degree in audioguidery at this point). Every other audioguide I’ve used to this point has worked the same way: you walk up to whatever site you’re interested in, punch in the number that’s prominently displayed on nearby signage, and listen to what the nice voice has to say. At the Forum you do this:

• Consult tiny 6” x 6” map that encompasses the entire site and attempt to orient yourself.
• Locate a number on the map and position yourself in approximately the same area.
• Punch in the number and listen attentively, trying desperately to determine if the heap of red brick on the left is the Basilica Fulvia-Aemilia, or perhaps the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Or maybe the Castor and Pollux thing is those 3 broken columns on the left. And wait a minute, did he say “Arch of Septimus Severus” or “Temple of Saturn”?
• Repeat 30 times, until you’re ready to insert your audioguide device into any available orifice of the guy who designed the map, or, most especially, whatever Hell-bent committee decided that they wouldn’t bother to put up a few discreet signs to give the tens of thousands of tourists who visit the site a fighting chance of knowing what they’re looking at. As I said in my Tweet – whoever designed that system should suffer death by a thousand paper cuts and then be forced to use his own guide to find his way to the afterlife. (“Ok, if that’s the River Styx then the boatman should be just over here… oh, no wait a minute. I must have this map upside down…”)

Here’s the map that came with the audioguide.

And here’s a good overview of what the site looks like. You can see why I was a bit confused.

So the Forum was frustrating. The Colosseum, on the other hand, was quite excellent. I took a guided tour there, and that was a much better choice. It’s much more contained, so it’s not as confusing. And come on, who wouldn’t be impressed with a sight like this?

The Colosseum was great, as was my guide who was full of useful tidbits of information, like the fact that the floor contained sixty trap doors with counter-weighted elevators operated on pulleys by slaves. This meant that 60 gladiators could appear through the floor all at once. Very impressive.

The remains of the understructure of the arena floor.

Also, there were originally no barriers between the wild animals fighting in the arena and the prominent citizens in the best seats close by. Apparently one or two senators became tiger chow before they realized they should put up nets. Hee hee.

I saw lots of other “biggie” sights too. For instance, the Trevi Fountain. And here's something weird: it turns out that I’d apparently never seen any image of the Trevi Fountain in my life before I encountered the real thing on Sunday afternoon. Honestly, when I came upon it after wandering through the maze of streets all I could think was, “Really? This is it? This is the Trevi Fountain? Well, I’ll be.” It wasn’t that it’s not lovely; in fact I lied it very much. It’s just that it was completely unexpected. Not at all the many-tiered circular wedding cake-like affair I had in my head. And on that afternoon it was positively heaving with people.

Heaving, I said. (Sometimes I wonder how many other people's pictures I've appeared in by this point...)

It turns out that the best time to see the Trevi is at 12:30 am, on a long walk back to the hostel, after having a few friendly drinks with Roman hashers. At least that was my experience. Your mileage may vary.

Much better

It’s also true what they say about the traffic in Rome. It’s a bit crazy, and getting to the other side of the street is kind of a cross between a game of Frogger and an extreme sport. There are crosswalks marked on the roads, but cars seem to obey them only when a critical mass of pedestrians develops and spontaneously surges across the the road, forcing the traffic to stop. In fact, I realized it was time for me to leave Rome when I found myself leading the charge across an intersection, right into oncoming traffic. Obviously I survived, but think it might be best to hit the road, figuratively speaking, before I ended up doing so literally.

Of course I also saw the Pantheon, which, like the Trevi Fountain, was not what I as expecting. I thought it would be smaller and sort of more run down. In fact, it’s huge and really impressive. Actually anything Roman that was subsequently taken over by the church is generally preserved much better than the rest of the Roman stuff. (The most intact sites at the Forum were also buildings that had been turned into churches.)

The dome of the Pantheon, my favourite part (of course) Legend says that they built it supported by an enormous heap of earth salted with gold coins. Then when the dome was complete they invited the citizens of Rome to come and cart away the dirt and keep whatever they found in it. Clever Romans.

I could go on and on. I haven’t even mentioned the Vatican at all, and that's a whole other country. And there was the Piazza Navona (And accompanying navigational nightmare on the evening of the drinks with hashers. Let’s just say that approaching the Piazza Navona from the east looks and feels remarkably similar to approaching the Piazza Navona from the west, and leave it at that.) And there were free aperitivi at the Campo de’ Fiori, and there was that stumbled-upon intersection where the buildings on each of the 4 corners were adorned with fountains, and there was running in the park at the Villa Borghese and lots and lots and lots of walking. And of course there was more gelato (new flavours: bacio, pinioli, amarena)

But now it’s time to say arrivederci Roma and hop the train for Cassino, and another Canadian War Cemetery, and another Great-uncle lost too soon. Stay tuned for that, and Naples, and Pompeii, and the big hop to Greece for the most unprepared-for marathon of my life.

* I found out too late that Rick Steves has a big selection of free audioguides for major sights in Italy, that can be downloaded for free from iTunes. Damn!

Pick of Pics - Firenze

Sunday morning, outside a neighbourhood church