An incredible trip comes to an end

Early tomorrow morning I board a plane to fly back home, sad to be leaving Joe and this incredible country, but happy to head home again. Some final thoughts. These are some if the ways that Italy has changed since I was here 30 years ago: The lira is gone, you rarely see men greeting one another with a kiss, the women seem to be less domineering and the men less preening, and you don't often hear people speaking in a dialect. Ways that Joe is changing: He talks about being sad about returning in December and wanting to stay longer, today we visited the cathedral in Milan at his suggestion, he has visited 10 cities in Italy and can't wait to see more of Italy and Europe, yesterday he let a non-English speaking Venetian woman give him an Italian-style haircut, and he's proud to have cousins in Italy who now considers to be friends. How have I changed? I've learned that I can speak Italian even with a 30 year layoff and that I love the way it sounds when Italians speak, that travel can be so much more meaningful when you plan well but then reach out to create something unexpected, that my son is even cooler than I thought and that I haven't forgotten how to write! When I read what others have written or when I myself write, I'm always most interested in the questions, "What was it like to be there, in that place, at that time, in that situation? What did it feel like?" I hope, dear blog readers, that these stories of the little things that make up an adventure have given you a little feel for what these two weeks were like.

An open window in a blues club

The little bar near where we were staying in Venice had a blues band playing last night. Joe and I stopped in and enjoyed how the lead singer explained each song in Italian - getting the names almost right: Johnny Hooker, Sony Boy Williams, Little Richard in place of Little Walter) and then singing in flawless bluesy American English. We found a spot inside next to an open window, with people on the other side listening, drinking and smoking. As is often the case, we were observers, too timid to interact with the people around us. Finally, though, my curiosity got the best of me as I watched the young students hand-rolling perfect cigarets. I asked for a demonstration and the young lady summoned a young man, who was the expert of the group who had taught the others. He was a German architecture student, studying in Vienna along with his friends, who were Romanians. They had all taken an eight-hour bus ride down to Venice to attend the architectural exposition - the Biennial. Josef, the German, had led them to this bar and they would soon board a bus for the eight hour return trip. He let us try our hands at rolling a cigaret - hold the filter (he had a little bag of them) in your mouth, spead some tobacco evenly on the rolling paper with the glue strip away from you leaving room for the filter on the right, squeeze and roll the paper back and forth until the tobacco is compressed into a cylinder, then start rolling from bottom to top, inserting the filter as you go, just before you finish, lick the glue strip and squeeze to all together. Then we stepped outside to the smokers' side of the window to enjoy our cigarets with our new friends (who had to help us light them in the breeze). Promising to give up smoking after that night, we enjoyed our tutorial and were glad that we decided to not just stand and watch, but to talk with someone on the other side of an open window.

First impressions of Venice

I had never visited Venice on previous trips to Italy - somehow I had been put off by stories of unbearable crowds and smelly canals, but I'm here now and couldn't be happier about it. By avoiding Venice I had somehow also kept myself in ignorance about the makeup of the city - is it on an island? Are the houses built on land, or standing on pilings over the water? So here are my first impressions after having been here overnight. Venice is indeed an island, actually several of them, that were formed by deposits in the delta of a river emptying into the sea. The canals were built to drain the water so that buildings could be built on the land. The major island is shaped like a fish and the train (or cruise ship) brings you to the mouth of the fish. Our apartment is near the tail. To save a few euros and have an adventure I walked from the train station to the apartment the first time. This would almost have been a good idea if I had had a decent map to help me through the labyrinth of alleys (called "called" here), over the bridges crossing canals (all but the largest are called "rios"), through tiny squares (campi) to our apartment in the quiet Castello district. There I was greeted by the manager, Signora Argia, who speaks not a word of English which doesn't deter her from non-stop, lengthy, over-the-top warm, welcoming conversations with each guest in Italian, regardless of the nationality or language abilities of the guest-of-the-moment. In fact, she is such a treat that I need to write a separate blog post just about her. Yes, Venice is crammed with tourists - each of whom is wandering around town with an expression mixed with puzzlement and awe, glancing back and forth between the map in their hands and at the city around them - but it is a place like nowhere else on this earth. Parts of it - like some of the palaces along the Grand Canal - look abandoned and eerily beautiful and then their are neighborhoods of an actually working city. A motorboat driver honks his horn as he rounds a blind corner of a tiny canal, a young mother stops to pick up her baby and stroller to carry it up the steps of a bridge, tiny plastic bags full of garbage sit outside apartment doors waiting to be collected in the morning, laundry hangs on clotheslines suspended over canals, a shrine to Jesus hangs on the wall of the Communist party headquarters. There's a grandeur here with architecture influenced by the East and remnants of prosperity of days gone by, but there's also a delight in the details of daily life that are so very different from the way it is back home.

The modern world vs. traditional ways

"It's prohibited to wash your car with drinking water". Resources are carefully used in the Cinque Terre. For the most part, there are no cars in the five villages. Service vehicles are allowed into the towns are there are parking lots above each town with shuttle busses to take you back and forth to town. As prosperity came to the village of Vernazza, locals began buying cars, despite the fact that it was more convenient to take the frequent trains that stop right in the center of town. The town built a larger parking lot, on top of an abandoned dump, and when the floods came, both the cars and the garbage were washed downhill to the sea. As the village rebuilds it will be interesting to see if the cars will return.

The terraces of the Cinque Terre

The steep hillsides of the Cinque Terre have been painstakingly terraced over the years to carve out some precious land for growing grapes. The building of the draw walls - stacked stone with no mortar - is something of a lost art. The woman would collect in preparation for the building of a wall - each size and shape had a specific name. The men would build the wall and - like a surgeon asking for a scalpel or forceps - would request the perfect stone for a given situation. They used no mortar so that when it rained, water could pass through and continue downhill rather than being built up behind each wall. A year ago there was a terrible flood that deviated the area and the villages, trails and walls are still being rebuilt.

Just ask a question

I took the picture of the cats while hiking from the Cinque Terre village if Corniglia to Manarola. At first I was disappointed that the coastal trail was closed due to landslides, but when I took the higher trail I saw some amazing sights along the way. At an Internet cafe in Manarola I asked the manager, Francesca, if my translation of "Two Cats in the Cinque Terre" (Due Gatti Nelle Cinque Terre) was correct. I showed her some of my photos and asked her for the Italian terms. The amazing little tractors on rails that transport the grape harvest are called "monorotaie". The tiny alleys of the Cinque Terre and Genoa are "carrugi". With only a little more questioning, though, she supplied lots of fascinating opinions about the area and Italy in general. The best focaccia comes from a certain neighborhood in nearby Ka Spezia, people who live near the coast are more open than people from inland places, once they get to know you. The Milanese, for example, have personalities that are as grey as their city. When I told her about the name if my blog, she showed me a picture of the decidedly impractical shoes that she had recently worn to a performance of La Boheme at La Scala in Milan. Despite her reservations about Milan, she said that being in the opera house, thinking of its history and listening to the music reduced her to tears even though they had "pigeon loft" seats and the shoes only made it through the second act.

Why "Practical Shoes"?

When I was 13, I took a summer vacation trip with my family to the east coast. My mother, the daughter of an Italian immigrant, had an old-world sensibility that included the belief that a person should dress up for special occasions, such as taking a trip on an airplane. I had my plaid sports coat and nice slacks in the suitcase when, on the drive to the San Francisco airport my mom asked, with a note of concern in her voice, if I had packed my shoes. "Yes," I answered timidly, glancing down at the scuffed tennis that I was wearing. My mother's reaction was very similar to how most kids' mothers might have reacted had they casually mentioned that they had left one of their major organs behind. WHAT? Those aren't shoes!!!!" It was Sunday and surely no stores would be open. We would fly in shame to New York. The trip would be ruined and it would be Mark's fault. We could exit in Salinas and pray for an open shoe store or maybe just head back home. As it turned out, God did intercede and a shoe store was open. We purchased a nice pair of stiff leather wing tips and the trip was saved. Today, I look to Rick Steves rather than my mother for packing advice and brought one pair of practical shoes. As fate would have it, though, it turns out that wing tips are all the rage in Italy in 2012....Shoulda listened to my mom.

Horsing around in Siena

This is the beautiful shell-shaped Piazza del Campo in Siena. It's unique because of its shape and how it's sloped like a sort of an amphitheater, the way the buildings and surface go together and because of this insane bareback horse race that takes place there twice each summer. There are 17 neighborhoods in Siena and 10 of them - with one horse each - compete each time. The neighborhoods have names like eagle, porcupine, snail or wave and there is intense rivalry and bragging rights between the groups. There are some posters around town showing the horses leaned over and sliding around corners and it just looks crazy. There was a store with a video playing showing the winning neighborhood reacting to the victory and it looks like hundreds of people all every bit as fired up as that kid in the viral YouTube video screaming I-GOT-A-NINTENDO-64!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm guessing that the wave 'hood won last time because their part of town was festooned with their dolphin symbol and this banner of the race. Tonight I had a little picnic on the bricks of the Campo and a parade came around the piazza. Everyone was dressed up like ER doctors with masks and such and there were banners and people beating drums. Every now and then a few of them would enact a little patient-on-a-stretcher skit and everyone seemed to be having a grand old time. I tried asking a couple of people what was going on but couldn't understand the explanation in either Italian or English. Maybe some kind of sour grapes display by a losing neighborhood? I bet it was those irrepressible porcupines!

The Ponte Vecchio

Tonight I'm back in Florence for the first time in many years. I turned 21 here and celebrated by drinking a bottle of beer on the Ponte Vecchio. I used to go there most nights, hanging out with the hippies selling jewelry and trinkets. As I recall, that was just about the only place in town where people were selling items on the street. Nowadays the streets in the historic center of town are mostly closed to traffic and the hawkers and shopping tourists are everywhere. Back in the seventies, I tired of what I perceived was a hostile attitude from the locals and left my summer program after a month and fled Florence to wander to the south and Sicily. As beautiful as the city is, filled with its treasures of art and history, I still get a vibe that isn't there in the less tourist-filled cities. Tomorrow I flee for Siena.

Kind of like the amazing race

When Joe joined his fraternity at NAU, part of the initiation involved memorizing facts about the founder, who taught at the University of Bologna centuries ago. He learned about these two medieval towers which still stand in the historic center of Bologna. So, armed with that information, we set off for Bologna in search of the two towers. We bought some postcards and showed them to people, asking "Dov' e? After going round and round, we finally figured out that we were perhaps being given directions to the nearest post office rather than to the towers, but eventually we found them. For three Euros we were allowed to climb the winding, worn wooden staircase to the top. Joe searched for signs representing his fraternity and eventually found something carved into the wood of the staircase. I would tell you what it said but I fear that fraternity rules might specify that I would therefore be hurled from the top of the tower.

The two who stayed

My grandmother had six sisters and two brothers. They lived in a stone house in the village of Cicagna - in the hills near Chiavari, where we dined with family last night. When she was a young girl, my grandmother was told by her mother to go outside and fetch some firewood. It was in the middle of a terrible storm and my grandmother was afraid to go out. Her mother insisted, but still the girl refused to go. Finally, her mother angrily said that she would do it. My grandma watched from the window as her mother climbed the hill outside the house, doing the chore in her place, as a mudslide came and buried her, killing her instantly. If my grandmother had gone instead, my family would not have come to America and I would not be here to record this story. After the mother died, the father remarried, but the new mother wasn't a caring step-mother. One by one, the children left to work outside the home and all of them eventually emigrated to America, the older ones helping the younger ones to make the trip. All of them came but the two who stayed - one in Genoa, and one in Chiavari. Those two have children and grandchildren in Italy today and those are the two families that Joe and I spent several unforgettable hours with the last two nights. In 1973, when I was Joe's age and came to Italy one summer to study Italian and stopped to visit the family on the way, even meeting my grandmother's oldest brother and hearing him speak in Italian and the Genovese dialect. I returned often on weekends, taking the train from Florence and even hitch hiked once. My Italian grew stronger each time and my grandmother, who was still alive then, must have been proud that someone from the younger generation had made a new connection. Now I have brought my son who so enjoyed meeting his Italian family. Last night as we sat around the table, a younger cousin, Morgana, typed an email to Talia and we made plans for Joe to return in December, this time with Talia. I called my mother and had her speak with her cousin - two women in their eighties, chatting for a minute in Italian. My grandmother would have been so pleased that we've kept a tie with the families of the two who stayed.

An evening with the Italian cousins

My cousin Milito and his son Davide came to pick us up at "La Casetta Rossa" (the little red house) - the place that we rented for the night. Even though my cousin has lived in Genoa his entire life, he had never been to this neighborhood - you have to park your car and walk down a winding narrow pedestrian-only walkway to reach the house. Milito and I hadn't seen each other in 30 years and our sons had never met. They took us to the apartment of another cousin in a distant part of Genoa where we had an incredible evening with them - there was very little English spoken with lots of Italian and a little Genovese dialect, but that didn't really hinder the conversation (actually about three overlapping conversations at any given time). The menu included casalinga (home cooked) cured anchovies and tuna, mushrooms, pasta al pesto, roast beef, an ice cream pie, wine, espresso, and grappa. We were totally stuffed before we had the dessert but our hosts explained that consuming ice cream wasn't really considered eating here in Italy but merely "refreshing of one's mouth". We look forward to both refreshing our mouths and cajoling them (our mouths) to speak Italian with another set of cousins tonight.

A return to Genoa

This is the same harbor in Genoa from which my grandmother embarked 92 years ago. She used to tell us stories about how her mother died when she was young, how her father's new wife wasn't too happy about marrying into a family with seven children and how she had to leave home and live with another family when she was quite young and work as their servant. It was emotional for me to see the spot where she began her journey to the U.S. where she would have a much more comfortable, even prosperous life, but that she would never see her father again. She helped instill in me a curiosity about our Italian roots and there's a satisfying feeling of completing a circle, coming back here today.

A well kept secret

Torino (or Turin) is off the beaten path to most American tourists. Did you know that the "T" in Fiat stands for Torino (Fabbrica Italiana Automobilo Torino)? I was told that it stands for Tony (as in Fix it Again, Tony. Downtown Torino is gorgeous with block after block of these porticos protecting pedestrians from rain and snow - I read that there are something like 11 miles in all. During about three hours of wandering downtown, I didn't hear one person speaking English. Try finding that in Paris, Rome or Florence!

A Joe Sighting!

Alternate title - "Take the picture already!"
It's so great to see Joe and how well he's doing. He told me that this morning he had his longest Italian language conversation thus far - with the owner of the coffee bar across the street who asked him if he was coming back for dinner tonight. So he and I dined at the mom and pop bar/coffee house/ restaurant. The wife prepared fettuccine with mushrooms and the husband served us as we butchered the Italian language but managed to communicate. They practically chased us out the door in protest when we left a small tip. I love that Joe's becoming a temporary native and has his go-to neighborhood coffee bar. He's noticing how the owners appreciate loyalty and will toss in a little treat to show it. It was a nice evening.

I had a audience with the pope today.

...or more precisely 50,000 or so of my most devout friends and I shared some piazza time with the pope. He appeared on the big screen on the left (you can only see him if you truly have faith) and there was a tiny speck of papacy on the stage in the distance. He addressed us in Italian but I had trouble understanding him - I think it was the German accent. The downside was that the dome was closed for the occasion so I wasn't able to climb the stairs to the top. By the way, I found my way there on public transportation by asking a nun for directions - she gave me the directions in Italian and then followed up with some courteous Italian expression. I looked it up later and I think it loosely translates to "may you find forgiveness". What did she mean by that? I was just trying to find the right bus!

All Roads Lead to the Hotel Ivanhoe

When I was in high school I was fortunate enough to travel to Rome during Easter week of my senior year. We stayed at the Hotel Ivanhoe which, as it turns out, is a half block away from where I'm staying this time. Yesterday, I dropped by to visit and as I explained to the desk clerk that I had stayed there previously (42 years ago!) an American hotel guest overheard me and we began a conversation. It turns out that she's from San Rafael and lives in a Victorian house on Fifth Street across from Cake Art and is in fact the owner of Henry, an ivy elephant that arches over the sidewalk in front of her house, that locals are very familiar with. My sister even knows her from her cafe (Sally's in SF) and because my sister used to work for her son-in-law. Lots of coincidences going on here! By the way, is it just me or does Ivanhoe seem like an odd name choice for a Roman hotel?

Inside Jokes from the Masters

Apparently, the great artists used to like inserting portraits of themselves, their friends, or their enemies into their paintings. Michelangelo felt that he was being persecuted by his patrons and critics and so he painted his own face on the corpse of a martyred saint and the face of one of his critics on a character being damned to hell - both of which are in his fresco of the last judgement. I guess the equivalent today would be when Taylor Swift or Adele are jilted by a young man and get their revenge by writing a pop song telling their version of the story. Here's an image of a brooding Michelangelo that Raphael included in one of his frescoes.

Forbidden Photos from the Sistine Chapel

I left my apartment before dawn to take an early semi-private tour of the Vatican Museum. Our tour guide raced us through a labyrinth of rooms and corridors to get us to the Sistine Chapel before the crowds hit. There is only natural lighting there and all photography is prohibited to help preserve the paint, but our guide assured us that we could get away with a few flash-free shots at that early hour. The frescoes have been restored to their original brilliance since I was there last and it's an awe-inspiring, actually emotional experience to see them, especially with very few people in the room. The ceiling, depicting the Creation, took Michelangelo four years to complete - including six months off when he fled Rome because of conflicts with the pope who commissioned the work. Looking at the ceiling this morning, I'm amazed that he could have completed this masterpiece even that quickly!

Passing the Colosseum on the way to dinner

I arrived in Rome at about 4:00 this afternoon and, despite severe jet lag, couldn't wait to get out and walk around. That's one of my favorite things to do - just jump into a foreign city and wander, when it still feels surreal that you're there. I was making my way to a restaurant that a friend had recommended when I looked off to the left and saw a slice of the Colosseum wedged between the buildings on either side of the street. The idea that a 2,000 year old building is part of the everyday cityscape is a foreign concept to this California boy.
I'm so excited to be here that I would probably pee my pants if I didn't have such a limited wardrobe on this trip.

Traveling Lite (sort of)

We're boarding in a few minutes and I got away with two carry-on bags despite bringing 3 cookbooks for the cousins, one fragile candy dish (from my mom for the cousins) and 3 t shirts, 3 dress shirts, gym shorts, a pair of dress shoes, nice shorts, a pair of drum sticks and a drumming practice pad for Joe. I would have brought the whole drumset, but I hate to check in bags!

Leaving for Italy

     Tomorrow I leave for a two-week visit to Italy. This is a postcard picturing the Dante Alighieri, the ship that my grandmother took when she left Genoa in 1920 and traveled to the United States. She was a little over twenty at the time and left her father and several of her brothers and sisters behind in order to join siblings who were already living in San Francisco. She wouldn't return again for thirty years when she traveled by ship once again, this time with her husband - my grandfather Peter Ratto.

     As it happens, it's been exactly 30 years since I last visited Italy. One week from today my son Joe and I will be staying in Genoa a few blocks from the same harbor from which my grandmother sailed 92 years ago. The next day my cousin Milio will pick us up and take us to nearby Chiavari where we'll meet with some other cousins not far from the little village where my grandmother was born. I've been practicing my Italian, trying to remember some of what I have forgotten since college and even managed a (sort of) Italian conversation with Milio on the phone last week.

     I'm sure that a great deal has changed since my last time in Genoa when Heidi and I visited during our honeymoon. I can't imagine, though, how difficult it must have been for my grandmother to say good bye to her family, never knowing if she would see them again, and how surreal it must have been for her to return after three decades.

I can't wait to be back in Italy.