On the way to India or Italian DelightsOur detour to Italy was entirely a fault of my friend Clare, who generously gave us a present of a stay in her charming new apartment in Venice-(Thank you so much Clare!) So, Venice is very close to Florence, which is not far from Rome....
Italy made an indelible impression on us, it is very hard to convey now, especially as I am writing this two months after our trip..
Rome: (see Fellini's "Roma" for a more detailed description)
Orange trees, Southern flowers along the dusty streets/ancient ruins/noisy and passionate language of amore/abundant fountains one can drink from/melting gelato/deep cleavages/ assaults on the senses/pastas cappucinos,vinos, tortas, revving scooters/statues that cleverly combine sensuality with graceful restrain over flesh. It is impossible to restrain however when one is not in marble: Rome is a sexy city. One can not live here and not make love a few times daily! The sights of Rome would often sink into deep cleavages of local women and needed to be retrieved from there kicking and screaming :-)
Wether you are Mafia, adolescents or a deep cleavaged Italian woman hurrying to an evening reception, the scooter is a way to go. Scooters are as ubiquitous in Rome as cows are in India.
Rome can turn mundane things into charming-junk mail can look stylish in the mouth of this serious Lion.
Although very touristy, Rome, unlike Florence and Venice, absorbs tourist crowds rather well. The exception is Spanish Steps where crowd density is approaching density of crowds in India.
Water fountains produce clear and tasty drinkable water, which comes from the surrounding Hills of Rome.
One of the big impressions for me, in Rome, but also in Florence and Venice, is that Italians live in their bodies. It is so striking coming from North America: people seems to be present in a very tangible ways-it is not uncommon to see somebody having a very intense and gesticulate conversation in the middle of the busy street. also, there is a strong sense of collective: often when we were lost and asked for directions, many locals were involved in helping us. If it was on the bus, often half of the bus had a conversation about where exactly our stop was...
Italy killed our insatiable desire to see and experience (well ,at lest for a while):
by the time we arrive in Venice, we were so saturated with museums and sights, that we decided to skip previously booked Academia. May be I am too much a man of modernity, but hours of Italian Renascence, made me yawn and I caught myself admiring faces of museum visitors rather then the glamorous museum artifacts.
Art can never be contained in the museums of Rome. It is oozing out everywhere (you can even see the latest Pharaoh in good condition right on the street.) We have spontaneously walked into Churches and heard great and free concerts. Our last night, we wandered into a Church which held an international Choral Competition, which inluded concerts by a great Russian Choir and a Choir from Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose Hebrew Spiritual rocked the old Baroque Church off its foundation!
In Venice, Clare's appartment was located in one of the few remaining "real" (as opposed to museum) neighbourhoods.
We could escape here from the unreasonable numbers of camera clicking, souvenir buying, ice-cream licking, semi-drunk on good Italian vino and hot sun tourists.. ( and I hate to be one of them!)
After going through a few countries in rapid succession, I began to realize how hard it is to really discover the true spirit of a country: it is as if the Tourist Industry has conspired to keep the authentic nature of countries from visitors and only present a slice of stripped and soulless facade, which is as a thin and corrupted veneer, give you some "museum" experience, that is all.
In Venice we have enjoyed buying food from tiny local shops and shopping along the side with locals. It is easy to buy whine from a host of small Trattorias (just bring your own bottles) and pasta from a very enthusiastic about organic pasta local woman....as well as fresh basil, tomatoes, garlic and onions (from a boat on the canal)-
all ingredients were combined at home into delicious pasta, which turned out better then we have eaten anywhere in Italy! In fact I was surprised how simple pastas were in Italy: it is usually just pasta and sauce-rarely there would be any other solid substance, such as a vegetable, added.
Venice was an amazing labyrinth of canals, bridges, blind ends, turns....all very unusual for our urban habits...Once, after intuitively delivering Teodora and I to the Clare's appartment, I became so foolishly confident in my ability to navigate Venice, that we got completely lost on my second attempt, wandering the dark peopleless streets at 11pm, trying to solve the hopeless riddle of getting home..
So, next time Teodora armed herself with a detailed map, and our wanderings became safe!
We have tried navigating away from the main tourist hub-St Marco Square, but one day could not avoid it:
taking advantage of some great opportunity to photo shoot children and pigeons. There is a very clever program of pigeon birth control-you buy a bag of seeds for only one Euro, which contains a sterilizing substance..and everybody happy: pigeons get to eat and are cuddled by children, and the city enjoys their lower numbers!
Florence did not excite me-it seemed poorer and dirtier, perhaps because it was so overwhelmed by tourists (I think tourists should be banned from Italy!), but Uffizi museum was worth a trip: we could witness ( it is really hard on the eyes, folks!) a gradual progression of iconoclastic art, from one dimensional unnatural expressiveness of saintly forms to more spiritual portrayal of religious scenes. I also liked green David (see below) and of course Vechio bridge-while I squeezed myself through the crowed to take a photograph, Teodora witnessed an American man standing on one knee in front of the reddened and tearful elegantly dressed woman. well, what do ya know? He was proposing....and through her tears and shock, it appeared (to us..and to him) that she accepted. We took their picture with their camera and off they went into the night life of Venice..and we ( as an old married couple) yawned and went into our noisy hotel room from where we could hear every horse hoof, bus, voice of the city amplified by cobbled streets, muffled by timely insertion of earplugs..
Through our tourist wanderings I began to doubt that we would ever reach India, but the future showed that India indeed exists and in fact in addition to offering opportunities for spiritual studies and experiences, is not immune from tourism either..but, about this later... ( I think people either should be payed to be tourists or tourism in its current form should be abolished!)
If you did not receive enough of my complaints about tourism industry, here is one more musing:
the best audio guides and tourist guides we have experienced so far are in Canada-yes, speaking not out of patriotic feelings but from experience: Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver had enthusiastic, knowledgeable and funny guides. In Europe, audio guidance is soooooo unimaginative and basic, the live guides are bored and boring, not funny, even when they try to be so ,and in my opinion not worth the money. The best way is to buy your own books and develop neck pain reading them as you stroll through streets, museums and experiences-however, remember-all they tell you is how to be a good and compliant, well whined, dined and entertained consumer of a thin veneer presented to you by a country which really want nothing to do with you, hide its true riches from you... OK, I stop here..
you can view more pictures from Italy at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/69781927@N00/sets/72157601834316997/detail/
