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Letter 09
Greetings again from Italia!
When we first thought about coming to Italy in August, we worried a lot
about how hot it was going to be. As it turned out, we need not have been
concerned. It is warm during the day, but it cools off at night. It has
been lovely here. And it has really been bad in southern Germany, which we
just left. All that rain has caused lots of flooding there. The
environmental factor we should have worried about in Italy was not the
weather – it was the tourists. There are what seem like millions of
tourists in Florence. In fact, there were so many tourists in Florence…
Tell you what. Let’s start at the beginning. We were in Firenza in 1995
or 1996. Last time we were here, we tried to get into the Uffizi Art
Gallery but it was Monday, and it was closed. This time we determined that
it would be our first stop. We succeeded in visiting the gallery, but it
was an ordeal.
We got on the bus at the campground and were delivered to the riverfront
about a five-block walk from the gallery. The Uffizi is huge. The entrance
was so far away that we could not see it. Not until an hour of waiting
later did we find an electronic sign saying that the line was between two
and three hours long, except if you had made a reservation beforehand.
This was an odd time to tell us. We already had an hour invested. As a
result, we decided to stick it out. We did not get into the building for
two additional hours and fifteen minutes. Never stood in a line so long
before. We will never do it again.
The collection is justly famous and interesting even if you go through
backwards as we did. That was because the toilets were at the end and
after over three hours on our feet getting to them was of first priority.
They were so far from where we entered that we did not want to return and
start at the beginning. We cannot say that it was a pleasure to finally
walk through. There is very sparse seating throughout. Almost everything
was poorly displayed. Lighting was very, very dim, the paintings were
displayed behind either glass or plastic panels, and some were so high you
had to crane your neck to see them perhaps 10 feet away. There were very
few places to sit and look.
When we reached the beginning, we took the lift downstairs and found
ourselves in the entrance rather than in the exit. The young lady in
charge immediately told us we should go back up and go through the exit
– only to be confronted with a very tense and exhausted old lady who
said "Absolutely not. I am not walking another step." They let
us go out the "In" door!
As we said, there are a lot of tourists in Florence, so there are going to
be lines. But a tourist friendly Uffizi could make some changes. At least
they could put the electronic bulletin board in a place where it would
warn you about the length of the line before you’d been standing an
hour.
That experience changed our choices. From that day on, if there was a long
line, we went somewhere else. As a matter of fact, instead of viewing more
paintings and sculptures the next day, we found a place to cut Adelle’s
hair and discovered a really wonderful food market. Can’t complain about
that. (Picture 1 shows a tiny part of this wonderful Florentine food
market.)
In a cathedral museum in Florence there is another thing we wanted to see.
It was a Pieta done by Michaelangelo when he was 80 years old. Apparently,
a piece of the marble broke in the wrong way, and he never finished
it…but one of his associates did. This Pieta has Nicodemus as well as
Mary and Jesus. The face of Nicodemus is that of Michaelangelo. The statue
was among the most beautiful we’ve ever seen, affecting us both.
(Picture 2 shows this Michaelangelo Pieta.)
The campground in Florence is worth a bit of description. It was located
high on a hilltop overlooking the city. The view was spectacular. (Picture
3 shows the view of Florence from the campground.) One could actually walk
down the hill, cross a bridge over the Arno, and enter the city. But for
older people, like us, there was also a bus that stopped just outside the
gate. The campground’s sites were spread among olive trees with lots of
olives growing. Our site was shaded by a large one of these. All
facilities on the campground were reached by walking and climbing
stairs—to the lavatories, the bar, the internet point and the market,
which was the best supplied market we ever have had the privilege of
shopping in. This fine campground had only two defects. One was the high
cost of the internet service and the other was that the electricity was
2-3 amps. That was enough to run our fridge, and our tiny fan. It was not
enough to run a microwave or even a toaster.
Siena is not far from Firenze. That was our next stop. We found the
campground with only a little bit of trouble by following the too-small
signs through the city. It was very close to the city – but it was
difficult to get there. Siena is a gem of a medieval city in the center of
a much larger modern city. A bus outside the campground took us in very
close to the old city. We’ve been in Siena before, so we wanted to do
things we hadn’t done the previous trip, but first we had to walk to the
old part of the city, down a hill to the Campo. This is a large open round
plaza where the famous Palio is run. We set out – and the first thing we
saw was a huge post office. Since there were some cards to mail, we went
in. It was not only a post office visit – it was an experience.
We needed three stamps. The post office had a electronic number system.
There weren’t that many people there, but there were only three working
windows, and every transaction seemed to take a very long time. It must
have been half an hour before we were called, although many left before
their turn. Ron decided that everyone had to tell their life story before
they could buy a stamp. We watched these lengthy transactions until it was
our turn. We must have stunned those clients holding the next number,
because we were at the window and out of there in a minute. We continued
on our walk to the Campo.
During the Palio, which took place earlier in the month, sand is brought
into the Campo and horses race around its perimeter. The race is among
riders representing different neighborhoods, each with its own colors.
Banners of these different colors fly at buildings around the open space.
Many of the flags were still flying around the now cleaned and very sunny
Campo. The old city hall and an adjoining tower dominate one side of the
circular open space. There were a lot of tourists in the open space but
the area is so large that it did not appear to be crowded. Except for the
cafes and the thin area formed by the shade of the tower. There were many
tourists crowded together and seated directly on the pavement in this
narrow shadow. If one leaves and returns at a later hour the shadow has
moved and so have the tourists. That shaded area attracts seemingly the
same number of people as it moves with the sun. (Picture 4 shows a part of
the Campo with the shadow that provides shade for tourists.)
Not being willing to stand in line meant we couldn’t do some things, but
there were a couple of places we did want to visit. In the old city hall,
there is a city museum. Among the treasures there is a 14th century series
of murals called "Good Government" and "Bad
Government". It is a very beautiful declaration of anti-despotism,
painted by a Sienese painter who died shortly thereafter during the
Plague. The "Good Government panel showed the city as it was in the
1300’s with an assortment of citizens doing everyday things, a
benevolent ruler and angelic council presiding. The city wall is shown at
about the middle of the painting, and beyond that was the fertile
countryside with farmers doing their thing. The "Bad Government"
panel showed people warring, some corpses, some sick people and a tyrant
on the throne with his devilish henchmen, the city in ruins, the fields
barren. Taken together these murals seem to show that 14th century
Italians recognized that many of their rulers were illegitimate warlords,
and they resented that and had the idea that things should be better.
Next morning we started for Rome. Again, we used the autostrada. To get to
there, we had to use a local road. That road was a little scary. It was a
good four-lane road, running through a very deserted area, but it had no
services, shoulders or emergency phones at all for over 50 kilometers (30
miles). Had we had a breakdown on that road we would have been in serious
trouble. We have a cell phone but even with that, we probably would not
have reached anyone who spoke English. Fortunately we had no problem and
reached the autostrada where there are many roadside phones and also
services. We haven’t been on other side roads in Italy, but we have
spoken to other campers who told us that the side roads are in awful
shape. We had stayed on the autostrada because there are so many
mountains, and we are know that the main highways are designed to be as
flat as possible. We don’t begrudge paying the tolls. It’s much easier
than driving too slowly and holding up traffic on poorly maintained local
roads full of Italian drivers, some of whom are simply suicidal.
The drive down from Florence passed through very pretty country. We began
to see both the tall trees that grown straight up (like a spear) and the
large umbrella pines. These pine trees branch out at the top like an open
umbrella. Taken together these two help to form a distinctive image that
means Italy to me. Now you throw in the hills on both sides of the roads
and add those densely crowded towns at the very top of those hills, some
of them with walls and towers, with perhaps a castle or two here and
there, and this can only be Italy. After seeing that mural in Siena, we
think those towns were built on hilltops to make them easier to defend
against warlords from predatory cities and towns elsewhere in Italy.
On the way we passed a number of places with familiar names like Orvieto,
where one of our favorite wines comes from.
Would you believe that there are about seven campgrounds in Rome? We
picked one, and it turned out to be one of the nicest we’ve ever been
in. It took a little bit of research in our camping books and a lot of
dumb luck. We didn’t plan to stay in Rome too long. We have been there
before and there is a lot to see in parts of Italy we have never visited.
We stayed one and a half days. Our first half-day was a housekeeping day.
We did laundry and went grocery shopping at the supermarket across the
boulevard from the campground (reached by walking over a bridge). The next
morning we took the campground’s shuttle bus to the Vatican. The line to
get into the Vatican museum at 9:30 a.m. was thousands of people long. You
have to go through this line and this museum to visit the Sistine Chapel.
We had visited this huge museum and the Chapel before so we simply walked
by – heading for St. Peter’s Basilica. Ron had been there, but Adelle
had never seen it. At 10:30 when we got there, we just walked in. At 11:30
when we left, there were literally thousands of people lined up.
Everyone knows that the richly decorated St. Peter’s Basilica is one of
the largest in the world, but it is more than that. Charlemagne was
crowned Holy Roman Emperor at a spot that an inlaid marble circle
identifies. Michaelangelo designed the beautiful, huge dome. When we were
here in 1995 a friend snapped a beautiful picture of the interior of the
Basilica when a stream of sunlight created a visible beam from the top of
the dome to the floor. Unfortunately there was no such beam this day. Ron
took a picture of St. Peter’s feet. People caress his statue’s toes
for luck and the result of this is that poor St Peter’s toes are slowly
wearing away. We have a 1955 picture of them at home and we’ll try to
compare the two pictures.
(Picture 5 shows the dome and a small part of the nave of St. Peter’s
Basilica.)
After lunch, we took a bus to the area where the Roman Forum, The
Coliseum, and a lot of other ruins are located. (Picture 6 is a shot of
The Emperor Constantine’s Arch and part of the Coloseum.) The big event
of the day was Adelle’s realization that a straw hat would be cooler
than the fabric one she was wearing. As we walked along, we saw a young
sidewalk salesman take out some straw hats. Ron said let’s ask how much.
The first one he showed us was more than we wanted to spend so we started
to walk on. He clapped a hat on Adelle’s head and said "Five
Euros" and made a sale. It was a major improvement in life! This hat
shades the sun but allows air to circulate. We walked through the ruins
and then took a bus home. There was nothing so interesting that we needed
to stay another day.
We thought we would visit the Roman ruins at Ostia – which had once been
Rome’s seaport. We left for a campground near the ruins, only to find
that it had closed a year earlier, and that the other campgrounds did not
have bus service to Ostia Antiqua – only to Rome. We weren’t
interested in that so we simply took off for the part of Italy we have
never seen. And that is why we are now in Pompeii, just south of Naples
and on the southwest border of that large, round, green area on our map
indicating Mount Vesuvius.
But that’s for the next letter.
Adelle & Ron
Adelle and Ron Milavsky, Authors
Take Your RV to Europe, The Low-Cost Route to Long-Term Touring
© Adelle and Ron Milavsky, 2005
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