Europe : Italy Venice Cram Tour - March 23

 The bullet train's only hiccup, thankfully was the text to speech announcer and we made it into Venice. A city hollowed out by AirBnBs and skyrocketing costs of living. Before the pandemic it got approximately the population of Canada in tourists every year. A romantic city, a city that seems only fit for secret agents or heiresses taking a break from the yacht.

Thanks for not killing us, pal!

It seems that going from Rome to Florence to Venice we've been gradually getting into smaller and more cramped streets with every jump. Rome was tight and packed but at least cars seemed to get up to a fast enough speed to do some real damage to a family of four. Florence, or at least historical Florence where we went had mostly pedestrian ways that grudgingly allowed cars, and most often just seemed to be scooters. Venice is entirely people. People and boats but a boat isn't going to run you over unless you are doing your walking tours, really, almost impressively wrong.

One gets the sensation of being in a sea going vessel. Space is more than a premium. Space is used up, boxed in, shelved over, contained, used, reused. 

The world's narrowest bathroom window?

I imagine local Venetians (a rapidly diminishing population, apparently the city is losing 1k residents a year) reading articles on Kowloon city and puzzled to figure out what the big deal is, exactly.

We are only here one night, so we go for a hotel. The cost comes to about 200CAD, which, while not cheap, is not Drive Into Monaco With a Lambourghini expensive either. I'm not sure what to expect. The hallways are covered in marble, the foyer, while space challenged, is, to my middle class eye, expensively appointed.

But we just paid the amount to stay in a Best Western, in VENICE. VENICE! The mind, or my mind boggles. This surely can't afford us anything nice. Maybe a locked door and a cot. Running (non potable) water. A single, naked light swinging by a wire?

Is it legal to have this much marble outside a quarry?

They show us to our rooms, around the back, to the Apartments. Which sound... confusing? Like is the cut rate area where they stuff the budget travellers? 

The porter leads us through a few narrow alleys (this is really redundant, we have not yet encountered a wide alley). Far enough away for the lovely hotel to deny any association with it. And we get a foyer with a very nice, if comically small, elevator. But, then, the wall to the right, is not promising, and honestly, probably is more than we can afford.

Mixed messages

We wind up the stairs, clumber into the apartment, and, I don't know what to say, I'm sure we'll be hit with some Service Fee, or Polo Fee, or, I'm not really sure what. Because this place is far too nice. It might be that I have a very low bar for very nice, I'll grant you that, but I assume with Venetian inflation and cost of living, I should be paying at least one and a half lambourghinis in Monaco for one night here.

But there is not time to dally too long here, time for our whirlwind tour of Venice! We have 24 hours! Less maybe! Mrs. Owl books a free tour, and we go! We just want to see all the big, basic sites for complete newbies like ourselves. Nothing too nuanced, or quiet. Go big, go loud, take pictures, see VENICE!

First words out of our guides mouth "We will not be seeing the usual sites, this will be a quieter tour, seeing things you don't usually see on tours"

Oh nooOoOooooOoOo.

It was actually not bad, he got really into the nitty gritty of things I didn' tknow I wanted to know, but we missed entirely the massive things in Venice, Doge Palace, St. Mark's Square, the Basilica. But the guide had diagrams and in depth explanations about things like, wooden pilings and the support of Venice. Surrounding cities and their relationship with Venice as well as the number of days required to do those cities justice.

We did get to see a lovely church, but just like the Duomo, I could not go inside. It was one of the few churches that had marble inside and out, and of course, as a result, caused a bit  more settling of the ground below, leading to the facade being a bit crooked. I couldn't see that of course. It was considered a lucky church to get married in with waitlists now around the 2.5 year mark. 

The contrast between the smallness of the church, against the fact it was entirely marbled made it extra quaint? Although quaint seems the incorrect word for a structure that holds such a place of importance for local residents.

We learn many more things, the quieter, nuanced parts of Venice. But it was a bit like learning about an elephant for the first time, without ever actually seeing it, and being told facts about it like, "They are known to stop passing trucks loaded with sugar cane to get a treat, to which the local drivers cooperate". Fascinating, interesting, but it seems there are other facts that might be learned first. Like the fact it could just as easily push the truck over, say, or has a prehensile trunk.

We finish the tour, we get pasta, gelato. And then off to the big things. The really, really, really big things.

Wandering the streets, dodging through foot traffic, we happen upon a church! That's open! I finally stand a bit inside and just take it in. The same arcane, puzzling artifacts all about, but wrought with such craftsmanship and artistry. To my mind it's like if they redid your favourite episode of Sesame Street but at the Shakespeare Festival. Comforting, familiar, but elevated.

Just 4 feet behind me was the rabbling tourists getting to this attraction or that restaurant, and all manner of gifts to buy. Students on vacation yelling and singing. And here, inside, almost complete silence.

\

And then we move on. To the big stuff. I think i've heard of the Doge Palace, but... really nothing else.

Clearly, Venice was not a city we should have tried to do in 24 hours. But being naive and entirely too ambitious, here we are. Surrounded by wonders. Not a plaque in sight.  And it wasn't just this dizzying, which, of course, does St Marks Square no justice. It was just across the water other wonders that I .. I don't even know what.

Tomorrow will be a wild rush to a gondola, then an overlong powered boat trip to the airport, where an really unlikely short time before we have to get out of the airport and re-enter and catch our connecting flight. 

Should be a doozy.

Europe : Italy BULLET train to Venice - March 23

It's time to say goodbye to Florence. Pack bags, finish what we can of our meagre groceries, separate the trash, double and triple check we have everything, huff it down the eight flights , and cross town, pass the magnificent Duomo.

A cathedral that makes no sense to a Canadian mind, just massive, but unlike the medieval churches we saw, gilded and decorated past comprehension on the outside. 

In a tip to my lapsed Catholic upbringing, I did want to see the inside. It is pretty amazing how, me, a mostly Asian man from Canada who was raised Catholic can still feel comfortable in such ornate surroundings. The main features of a Catholic church are repeated around the world, and it almost has a homey feeling.

I realize this is odd, as among the Christian faiths, Catholicism has the most Baroque and ornate ceremonies. Odd statues and rites. 

I remember the first time I visited a Protestant church, being struck by how austere and simple everthing was. Where were the stations of the cross, the tabernacle, the statues, oh the many statues, the candles to light, the confessionals? Where was the massive crucifix showing Jesus slowing dying from suffocation with a bleeding crown of thorns on his head. Ok, writing it out now I realize it's a bit odd.

In anycase, yes, I wanted to see inside, as most tourists do, but with a feeling of almost nostalgia. Like being in the middle of Japan and hankering for a Big Mac. Slightly sacriligeous, sure, but I am a former Catholic.

There was a morning service, and there was a door open at the front, clearly for the faithful. I couldn't bring myself to step through, seemed disrepectful. If there is a next time I'll pay the entrance fee and visit like the other heretics. 

In our time in Florence and Rome, petty theft has not reared it's head. Everything is very urbane and lovely. Is there some part of me that misses what I imagined to be a little electric thrill of navigating pick pocket infested streets? Maybe, but with everything so extremely chill it allowed me time to people watch.

It was noticeable how so many of the pedestrians were young women. I have many theories about this. 

Maybe most art history majors are women? Maybe only young ladies have the responsibility and discipline to save to travel? Maybe this is just a reflection of the fact that there are more women than men in post secondary education? 

I have no answer, but there is a sizable gulf between 'don't travel alone, it's dangerous!' paired with the fact there were so many young women, often by themselves, living their best lives. 

There are a few markers of casual Italian dress. IMHO, in no particular order

- well fitting pants

- no rad Star Wars prints

- puffy jacket, or leather

- lovely scarf (almost mandatory)

- a higher than Canadian percentage of older men with long hair (and younger, of course)

- leather jacket and leather pants is almost certainly guaranteed Italian

Due to what Mrs. Owl and have termed 'sympathetic peri-menopausal heat flashes', and also due to the traditional gender role foisted upon me to 'carry all the heavy stuff', I had to strip down to my, uhm, rad Star Wars t-shirt. Scarf absolutely out of the question. Jeans.. whatever I got at Costco. Ethnic background, mostly Asian. I was the least Italian pedestrian in all of Florence.

I was also THAT Canadian wearing a t-shirt in, somewhat cool weather, about 10C. 

If you are Canadian, particularly if you live in the more temperate areas, there are always transplants from the colder parts of Canada who insist on wearing shorts and t-shirt well into November. "You think THIS is cold" and other such phrases never fail to tumble out of their mouths, as if they are proud of being raised in the arctic wastes, oddly what they conceive of as the Real Canada. 

And so we finally make it to the bullet train! I honestly thought I'd write more about that, hence the title, but there isn't so much to talk about. It's quiet, on time, not a single donkey cart upturned in sight.  

It goes 300km/h which is an eye watering speed to go on land. A speed that's more fitting for birds of prey , or, I dunno, objects falling from the space station. I'm sure it's all stabilized and controlled by computers and software, which, as a programmer, really just makes me even more worried.

Just as we leave, the text to speech announcements glitch out just enough to give the first 15m or so of travelling at 300km/h an electrifyying dose of excitement. 

Europe: Italy Uffizi Gallery - March 22

 And we finally get to the day of the Uffizi Gallery, the motherload of them all for us plaque readers. Just plaques upon plaques bolstered by an audio tour and some judicious googling. A vast array of art and sculpture, first started by the Medici family, and later pieces added by, I think some non-profit society. I can't help but wonder what sort of fund raisers this non-profit runs to afford ancient works mouldering in some minor royal's mansion. Or if it's just a front to wash ill-gotten krugerrands (why were krugerrands such a staple of 80's action movies?(oh right, apartheid, yowsa)).

So, back to the Uffizi, literally, the Office, where the Medici's did the bureaucracy of ruling, directly and indirectly so much of Tuscany. One can imagine it being filled with drones, one scribe saying to another that  yes, we are double sealing all scrolls level 4 and above and if he could come in during the Sabbath to finish up the filing and gold leaf calligraphy that'd be great. 

There is the lumbering blindness of bureaucracy at work here too. We get our tickets, go through security, with the very security looking fellow letting me know that I can take in my oversized water bottle, as long as I keep it in the bag. There was a split second of alarm in his eyes when I asked him about this, and I was pretty sure he was making it up on the spot. But fine. 

He sees my bag, we go through. We wait in line for the audio tour device, pay, and now walk what  I can only assume is the entire length of the gallery, underground, to get to the starting point, about to descend another set of stairs to.. I don't know how museums work, but somehow position us better. And at THAT moment, several thousand weirdly overwarm steps through marbled hallways, does a diffident fellow sitting on a chair inform me we have to check in our bag. All the way back at the start. 

It seems to me that the security fellow at the start could have told me that. But this is the Office, I suppose, maybe they are trying to keep the spirit alive. Those scrolls aren't going to double seal themselves, after all.

You basically go through the history of art, from the medieval all the way to the height of the Renaissance (with Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo) to the late Renaissance. You are going to see alot of goldleaf, and just scads of religious imagery. Maybe a smattering of vanity pieces by rich merchants, and quite a few classical sculptures.

Art, it seems, is always looking to the old school masters for inspiration. 

The Greeks with their classical sculptures (the real OG ones made from bronze, mostly all melted), the Romans copying the Greeks with marble (a cheap substitute to the expensive and difficult to work with bronze), the Renaissance masters borrowing from both classical and Romans. 

The subject matter stretches from the very pagan and, might I say, quite metal (as in fender electric guitar on fire screaming a high C while sliding across the stage in tiger spandex, metal) to the extremely religious. (e.g. there is a room dedicated to Niobe, who, spoiler alert, brags about having more kids than Titan Leto, who has all 12 children killed. There is a room of statues dedicated to these teen/children being slaughtered, like I said, metal)

All throughout are the statues. And there is quite a bit of copying and rewriting and fudging of these. A sculpture of Hermes was actually one of a Satyr just retconned a few hundred later to be hermes. This sculpture and that sculpture altered and added to fit the style and tastes of the time. The original remixes. 

Even I cannot or have the urge to read all the plaques, but I do want to read whichever one strikes my fancy. The children and Mrs. Owl as are getting antsy, I see the fight or flight panicky look in their eyes, as they survey the sea of plaques and audio tour interest points. I make the quick and good decision to let them go ahead while I wander along and take my time. 

And most folks are barrelling through anyways. There is so much to see, and most is not of interest to most folks, particularly in the medieval period, when they just kind of forgot about perspective or any realism in their painting. There is an austerity to them, monastaries and rain swept castles encrusted with moss are brought to mind. The plague reaping through cities as monks carefully goldleaf the last of an old testament book. 

So I make my way through them, and in between, I'm amongst the classical statues. The main worry, and there is always worries with me, but the MAIN one is that one of us milling tourists will knock over these precariously balanced statues. 'Oh they must be doubly reinforced. Certainly they don't expect this velvet rope to offer any sort of protection from a clumsy tourist?' And then I think of the diffident man and am doubly worried.

I don't stop at all of the statues, or even most of them, just the odd one that grabs my attention. One is considered the first ever example of a statue undergoing restoration. It caught my attention because the statue's face looked like he had just given up his soul to play the most wicked 19 minute electric guitar solo ever heard. The story was approximately that, it was of a satyr about to be flayed alive for losing a music contest to Apollo. So. Metal.

In the medieval wing the audio guide often told me to look up, as this area was where the arms and weapons of the Medici were kept, so the frescoes above were more about the day in the life of military work. Either of conquering , say, uhm, Mexico? Or making gunpowder and cannons. It was nice to have a break of looking at yet another Annunciation of Mary. 

At some point you start to see changes in the art from the extremely flat to a least an attempt at realism. But the early Renaissance can still be seen as early. I'm not sure what the technical term is but everyone is ugly AF. 

Techniques get better and better. I told my kids it's like early computer generated graphics. Certain things the painters could knock out of the park : cloth, stone, jewels. Other things took alot longer to get out of the uncanny valley, namely, the people themselves.

Of course everyone is here to see the recognizable masters, Leonardo, Michaelangelo. The difference is made even more apparent to me when I see a religious scene that a lesser master makes to replace the unfinished Adoration of the Magi (due to my relatively sparing number of pictures I guess I didn't take a picture of the replacement, and 10m of hard googling turned up nothing). But the difference, the dynamism, the life of the unfinished Michaelangelo is striking, even for an art ignoramus like myself, is pretty obvoius. Less obvious that I don't have the lesser masters work to show, though :S

Then we wind through the ages, the later Renaissance masters attaining pretty amazing results with light, and more realism in faces. So, so many pictures of Mary, and the baby Jesus, then random sprinklings of nobles, or some truly epic paintings of classical myth. Hallways and hallways of other tourists, precarious statues, unread plaques.

Really, the only complaint was sometimes there were NO plaques around things that seemed like they should have. And then google Lens got me nothing. In particularly in the aforementioned metal Niobe room there are paintings that are large enough to give adequate housing to at least two families. Just massive works of art, of some super cool battle. But no plaque. No audio clue. Not even a little piece of paper letting me know what the work is. That was frustrating.

But then I'm out, and done. Fully plaqued out. A fairly thorough job of the Uffizi, for me, at least. And didn't even have to come in on the weekend.

Europe : Italy Cinque Terre - March 21

 Ah, the Italian Coast, where, international magnates of dubious fortune launch their yachts and where tech CEOs go to recenter themselves after laying off ten thousand or so workers. I think it's the word Italian, it just brings to mind luxury. I don't think there are words that are not bolstered by adding the word Italian: Italian Paper, Italian Chairs, Italian Industrial Repurposed Polyurethane... Ok, maybe the last one.

Anywaaays, there is a set of 5 towns along the coast that are quaint, raked at an angle steeper than a Agatha Christie theatre, and all painted lovely pastels. Here the streets are narrower, if that's possible, and their economy is entirely (or so much so that the difference is negligible) tourism based. 

We are on a tour, and this tour's purpose is not so much to inundate us with tasty facts but just to herd 50 of us through one 2 hour bus ride, and a handful of train rides to the different quaint towns to spend our tourist dollars.

We do get a burst of information on the bus ride there. Different towns and the basis of their economies, petty rivalries, vengeances, the, it seems, usual things that play out in history.

One town is where Michelangelo picked out his marble for David. In the distance were mountains eaten away by hundreds of years of marble quarrying. At one point there will be no more mountain, and no more marble, but I suppose that's a problem for future Italians, hundreds of years from now. It was quite striking though, the voracious industry of humankind gnawing at that mountainside.

We are in Tuscany, but it wasn't until we turned on corner in the mountains and could look down upon some fields (and some areas where Puccini's house was) that I really saw what I imagined to be Tuscany. Again, Tuscany sounds like somewhere millionaires travel and buy lakes or throw up chalets, but it's a land like any other. Roads, rusted out mechanic shops, industry. There was something sleepy about the country side, many things seems to have mellowed into a state of comfortable disrepair. How much of this is just the general very high youth unemployment in Italy, or the problem the world over of youth fleeing the suburbs and heading to the city for more excitement, less parents, more freedom. 

There were also other facts, cigars, I think. Cigars that were accidentally fermented and became world famous. The same ones Clint Eastwood smoked in his spaghetti westerns and caused his signature grimace (as the guide would have us believe).

But soon after that the facts generally peter out. The guides are willing to answer any question or just chat, but there is no set talking points. They are busy enough making sure we make our trains and get to meeting points at different times. They seem disconcertingly surprised that our trains arrived relatively on time. Perks of travelling during the off-season, I guess.

I won't single every town out. They were all charming, incredibly steep, beautiful sweeping seasides, and just packed with tourist traps. At the second to last one we just sat in the shade, on the stone dock, with nobody around. We then realize how long it had been since we've been in public while not surrounded by people. Just people on top of people on top of people it seems. 

One of the towns was used as a backdrop for the Disney movie Luca, and yes, it looks exactly like. 

The food in these places were notably different from most of the places we've been in that they feature seafood heavily. Heavily deepfried, that is. When you need to service an endless stream of hungry tourists this seems like a good strategy. There was of course the usual gelato and pizza and pasta shops. 

For dinner we opted for sandwiches. The sandwiches seemed to have about 3 fewer ingredients than one would think make up a sandwich. Like mine was anchovies and butter. That's it. And bread. It worked, of course, the anchovies and bread being incredibly fresh helped. But the bread we've encountered in Italy is structurally solid. A crust that could take down a small bird or be used in emergency vehicular repair. But that's only the crust, when you breach that it's all bready goodness. The result, interestingly, is that it slows you way down trying to eat, say, a sandwich. Which helps you appreciate all the fresh ingredients, it's all very European. 

At another town they explained the reasoning for all the colourful houses, was apparently, for a particular fisherman to keep tabs on his wife and her questionable fidelity. So, time passed, yadda yadda, unesco, yadda, now if you want to paint your house you have to double check with the UN to make sure it's the right shade. Of infidelity checking, I assume.

The water was a beautiful aquamarine. In BC we are used to a healthy silty mud brown ocean water. Great for agriculture and biodiversity, horrible for selfies. 

The trains took us back to the bus which took us back to our 20m walk which took us to our 8 flight hike to sleep. Tomorrow, under absolutely no illusion of ease, is the Uffizi Gallery.

Europe: Italy Florence Walking Tour - March 20

It's the day of a proper walking tour of Florence. Of my muddy understanding of it, there's quite a bit of violence, backstabbing, assassination, and backstabbing assasination. Also vengeance, petty rivalry, toxically large egos. Outside of outright in full daylight attempts on lives, current politics hasn't changed drastically. This is the land of "The Prince", that gave us the term Machiavellian. 

Our guide is Elisabetha, a guide who speaks at fifteen thousand miles an hour but the stories and tidbits of fact are so interesting that it's forgivable. I do feel sorry for the folks from other countries who select an "English" guide since the there is no guide in their first language. I can only hope understanding snatches of phrases from context helped them out here.

We weave through the narrow streets of Florence paste the stalls selling, invariably, leather to the Palazza Vecchio (Old Palace), where Florence was ruled from for hundreds of years. One dynasty, the Medicis. 

Very broadly, and very quickly: rose to power through trading, then banking, then bankrolling the Vatican. Backstabbing, overthrows, religious revolt, armed retaking of the city, etc. Establishment of an Office (The Uffizi, where the world famous art gallery is (admittedly I knew nothing of this gallery until a few weeks ago (and also, admittedly, it's not like I'm the sort of person who would know about this))). 

Somewhere the narrative lands on one of the Medici's making his wife his upset, his wife buying a house across the city (as one does), and the Medici making a hall that ran above the and through the city for 1km so his wife and his children could make it from the new house to the Uffizi, the place where the business was done, without being, say, openly assassinated.

House #2

It was a long twisted and engaging story. The movements of the 1%, the 1% of the 1%. The line of the Medici ends in, approximately, lots of malaria and syphilis. The amount of pettiness and self-aggrandizing is echoed in today's billionaires of course, humanity doesn't progress as terribly far as we'd like to imagine. 

We've walked our feet to reasonable nubs. Not entirely devastated, hopefully enough for the 8 flights of stairs to our VRBO. 

As I've said, the entire 'eating most of a cow, lightly warmed', is not the greatest for my health, the planet's health, my wallet, or.. really, if we are being honest, the cow. But Owl Jr, ever the carnivore, asks if he can share one with me, and I'm powerless to say no. Giving The Children An Experience is a quick way for me to shell out money, only beaten by Give My Children, Somehow, A Better Education. Predictably middle-class sentiments, I know. 

So anyways we had the bifteca. It was great, of course. Tomorrow, the Italian coast (that makes me sound like a Bond villain doesn't it, or a henchmen.. maybe an office worker processing Bond's expense paperwork).

Europe: Italy Train to Florence - March 19

The 19th we traveled to Florence. So pulling our wheeled carry on through cobbly too narrow streets for twenty minutes to get to the Roma Termini. It's a given that the closer you get to the central train station the dodgier it gets. My guess is nobody wants to live near a rumbling train filled with annoying tourists so the real estate is dirt cheap. Maybe it's also a way to inoculate visitors with the maximum dodginess just as they come off the train, everything else will be a breeze?

In any case, we take the hike, get to the train station, and get to the platform where the train is leaving from, which, if I'm honest, is at least as far as we had to walk from our VRBO to the station.Warnings and stereotypes aside, we haven't really experienced too many late trains. But maybe it being off season plus our easy going Canadian nature seems to blur that a bit. 

Another 20 minute walk from the station to our Florence VRBO. It's much like Rome: narrow streets, narrower sidewalks, cars that assume you have the keenest sense of hearing (the ER rooms will be overflowing when the silent electric motor becomes more prevalant), walls that block out most of the sun, amazing old architecture and art every few blocks, usually ignored at best.

We make to our VRBO, and it's a nice, healthy, Oh You Want Blisters On Your Calluses On Your Blisters walk up 4 flights of stairs. Except it's not 4 flights, since every floor has extremely high ceilings. As has been the usualy in Italy, the stair way is twisting, and brutal and you can almost picture allied troops storming up these steps as Mussolini's troops throw down potato mashers. I mean it's quaint, who doesn't love an extra burst of exhaustion at the end of their journey?

I'm of a standard husky middle aged north american build. A waitress, when confused about who had ordered extra cheese at my table, would immediately (and correctly) assume it was me. Euro cut anything is an absolute no go for me. So there is a beauty, a delightful history filled delight in our VRBO. But it's not my sized. I have turn around carefully, take keys off of key handles carefully, breathe carefully. 

The front door has a unique quirk where it cannot be opened without a very middle aged era looking key. And with some difficulty. I'm sure it's breaking some sort of fire law with that but you know this door is probably older than democracy so it's just left well enough alone. 

The bookshelves are filled with high brow and low brow books, of varying languages. Europe constatnly reminds me of how uneducated I am, most people speak at leaast two languages. At least the British have delightful accents that could land them a job anywhere in North America doing pretty much anything, well, because they are delightful accents. I sound like the 10 o'clock local news talking about a very interesting (it is not) quirk in Sardinia's monetary policy. 

Water update : still not up to my imaginary standards. Italy, have more pristine glacier water fed directly into taps please.

For dinner we learn about trattorias, which are more chill casual places that actual Italians eat, or so the internet tells us. So far, with inflation, and the general tipping policy in the Vancouver area (18% is about minimum, 20% is usual), the cost to eat out in the UK and Italy is about that of home. So at on that front it hasn't been too bad. And being of a certain age and husky disposition, I have to watch my meat intake, but, while here, I had to try the Florentine Biftek. Which is just an absolutely massive slab of beef cooked rare. 

Historically this dish was developed in the 18th century to cater to English tastes, but, which time and enough foggy memory it has installed itself as a Very Italian Thing. Or at the very least a very Florentine thing. We had the minimum they could serve, or rather, I did, 800g, which is.. uhm.. 2 pounds or so of rare beef. It was excellent. My future cardio grams will not thank me, my general gut health has gone to hell, and my overall huskiness has put in some stores, shall we say.

I shared vast portions with my family. Specifically, with Owl Jr. Who, like his father, has taken a liking to meat in any and all forms. There is something beyond luxury about steak at that level. The economic cost (40 euro/kg), the ecological cost, the health cost. It's just costs all the way up and down, but we enjoyed it anyways. When in Florence, do as 18th century British do, as the saying goes.

Tomorrow, more walking!

Europe : Italy Rome Random Thoughts - March 18

Completely random takeaways that really fit nowhere.

The colosseum is pitted with those large holes because they used to be filled with metals, but during the Dark Ages they were stripped and melted down, apparently for weapons. The same goes for many of the classical greek statues in Rome, which were of bronze. The marble statues we think of as the original classic style are just Roman carvings that survived the Dark Ages. Our tour guide in Vatican City constantly referred to these beautiful Roman marble statues as 'copies', meaning, not the larger bronze Greek statues.

One of the pope was a fan of the Egyptians, Pope Gregory. So he decided the year would have 365 days just like the Egyptians, so two very Roman sounding months July (Julius) and August (Augustus) were squeezed in before the original seventh month, SEPTember. OCTober, NOVember, DECemeber were simlarly knocked down 2 pegs. This feels like a factoid I once knew with a weird pride, but having rediscovered it, while walking through the halls of the Vatican Museum, is doubly interesting.

Several times I've googled lens random churches we pass by and am always amazed by the incredible artwork inside. On our last night I even saw one open, with a chamber choir singing some renaissance era songs, and actual horns in the balcony playing. Unreal.

You have to be pretty assertive to get across any crosswalk in Italy. The drivers don't seem overly concerned about running you over, they all seem pretty confident that if it came to it, the pedestrians would just dive out of the way.

The cars here are, generally, absolutely tiny. Which, ecologically, makes sense  (we hardly need any car at all to do most of the things we want to in modern life.) But when I saw the price of gas here, about 3 dollars a litre, it made even more sense.

There is, and I didn't think this was possible, too many restaurants, too many gelato shops. Servers will hail you down as you walk by and ask you, 'table for how many'. With this much competition, the restaurants that stay alive have to have some hustle, I suppose. 

The water here, as in London, is not up my Canadian standard. Granted, there are few things that Canadians can be snobby about, and maybe this is particularly only BC Canadians, I'm not sure, but if there is one thing, it's tap water. Everywhere I've been, as I tell my children, it's garbage water for garbage people (this is only in jest, and in reference to a hilarious quote from an indie game that Owlet plays). But on our last night we finally found a bottled spring water that tastes almost like BC water, I was unreasonably happy about this.

The obelisk in St. Peter's Square is 4000 years old. It was really ancient, 2000 years old when it was put there. Time is whack.

Rome's history is like : THE ROMANS! Whoa! Here comes Christianity! Strife! Battle of ideas! Constantine sets things to rights! Oh, dear, Dark Ages. Lots of handwavy who the heck knows. Renaissance! Absolute silence. Italian Unification. FINI. At least, that's the parts that get repeated again and again. Clearly some gaps. But the jump from Nero to Constantine, the transformation of the Renaissance, all seem to come into a bit more focus, and their relationship to each other. Clearly they can't cover the entire enchilada, but it's notable how often the same spans of history are absolutely skipped over.

I do feel a bit down when I hear other folks with North American accents. I guess thinking that having a Canadian accent was interesting or set us apart; but honestly you hear Italian only slightly more often than literally any other language. Speaking with a North American accent makes us typical if not Somewhat Annoying.

Europe: Italy Vatican City - March 18

First off on our second day in Italy we get breakfast, preferably this time, in a place where prices are visible. Google finds us a lovely little cafe, where we get pastries and rolls and I get a capuccino. The proprieter has the world weary look of a dad who has maybe seen so much, beaten to quiet, grim perseverence. 

Minutes later his son appears, tattoes all up his neck, and, while he was perfectly civil you can only imagine the heartache and shouting matches he's had with his son. Even with the various proprietors and waiters we've chatted with, some of whom have rather excellent rapport and well rehearsed openers, this man, who could not have said more than 5 words to me, illicited most of my sympathy.

We decide to brave the subway. Jets and sharks be damned. It, of course, is a smooth ride. Get the tickets, get on the right line (compared to London, the simplicity of lines here is a welcome change), and head to Vatican City.

It's just the media diet of the average North American combined with whatever stereotypes we get of Italy there, but I imagined a much more.. chaotic affair. Late trains, train conductors and passengers gesticulating wildly at one another, a donkey cart, for some reason, upturned and blocking the track, someone down an alley singing opera. (This too, might be one of the many strong contributors to the Italian coolness we experience from time time, having to deal with these mental expectations of the average tourist).

Our tour guide this time also has the slightly concealed bubbling excitement for history that I've come to expect in a tour guide. Vatican City, a city state unto it's own in Rome, is just absolutely jam packed to the gills with folks going through the Museum. You don't just have the Catholic faithful, but you also have the slack jawed tourists like my and my family, shambling about priceless artifacts and testaments to one of the great religions of the world.

Here the guide again does not shy from the ugly histories. Mussolini features heavily, Italian invasion of the Papal lands, and the retreat of the Pope to what is now Vatican City. So many sculptures and pieces of art that I know of, if not know about. All gathered under one roof. At one point the number of sculptures and frescoes, both from Ancient Rome, as well as from the Renaissance pushes my brain into tilt. That, with my inability to stop and properly read all the plaques I want to read, my brain is a cinder, smoking. 

And then all is quiet, we shut off our cameras, and shuffle through some windowless corridors, and make our way to the Sistine Chapel.

Without the mental crutch of being able to take pictures of literally anything, so we can digest them later, one is absolutely forced to remain in the exact moment, soaking in as much as the imperfect human memory can cram.

First off, there is a constant murmur, folks hear the 'do not speak' and 'complete silence' rules and, as humans do, assume it's for other people, or 'certainly I can whisper this one thing', multiply that by an absolutely crammed Sistine Chapel and you get a murmurration of tourists, gabbling as people do, maybe before a particulary high brow show, something involving violins and Russian composers. 

Even with the prep, even the preambles of this painting or that painting, there is nothing that quite prepares you for THAT amount of art. That most famous painted ceiling in the world. Right in the heart of the Vatican, from which the white or black smoke emits during papal election. Your eyes try and rake in every nuance and detail, but you have to know, deep down, you are unequal to the task.

The one thing that stays with me is how absolutely and utterly jacked everyone is. Nobody ever skipped any day at any time. Middle aged women reaching their arms out in one painting stil have a mountain of a bicep ready to crush, I suppose, heathens? And elderly woman, well into her golden years is completely flexing her bicep, her 40 AD clothes not up the task of containing her serious guns.

But aside from that there is a dynamism to every painting. It's compounded by two interesting facts. The paintings on the WALL are done by lesser masters, and not quite up to the Renaissance standard of human realism, they are somewhat 3D, but not the extent Michaelango is painting. The contrast is startling. 

And then there is the fact that Michealango was a sculptor first, and did these under duress. Every figure pops and lives in all dimensions as only a sculptor can imagine. The poses seem purposely picked to show 'what's the hardest ever pose to paint'. And then top it with the fact that his sculptor training can't be bothered to paint backgrounds, leaving them blank, further accentuating the dimensions of the bodies.

And what I was certainly not prepared for was the end wall painting, which was done by him, the Second Coming of Christ. Which is just an assault of form and drama and colour. It's not on the ceiling, somewhat etheral, so far away, so difficult to really look at for any length of time, it's the entire end wall. It seems like an acre of paint (and might very well be, actually). 

The tiny monkey brain in my head trying to suck all the details in, trying to appreciate every form, it was entirely unequal to, but what an experience.

Our tour ends in a building I"ve heard of, but really know almost nothing about. St. Peter's Basilica. Yes, largest church, etc, etc. But nothing really concrete.  I'm a lapse Catholic, sure, but apparently not a very attentive Catholic before I lapsed.

There are massive doors, and a flood of constant tourists/pilgrims, but once you get in... it's like everywhere you look is a far larger than life sculpture or mosaic that you'd expect to line up for a good part of an hour to see. But are just.. there. There's Michelango's Pieta, some incredible bronze St Peter's Baldachin (a bronze canopy larger than most houses), a piece of the true cross over there, St Veronica with her veils of marble flying free, in defiance of all physics.

On the floor are markers of where OTHER churches make it, in length. A bit of the Italian braggadocio. St. Paul's Cathedral only makes it here, Some California Cathedral only Here. And it's marked in marble, this is something that the upper leadership of the Catholic church thought it was important to highlight. Yes, yes, we get it, the Basilica is the largest church in the world, ok. 

But even with that, the spectacle, but in sculpture, is too much to take in. And, also, not enough plaques, which I suppose would be out of place in a church.