Tuesday, April 30, 2002 16:24
Weather: Hot & sunny.
Location: Highspeed 4 ferry from Piraeus to Paros.

By common agreement after a conversation with other travellers, Pascale and I both decided to skip Athens and head straight to the Greek islands from Nafplion. I've got 6 days scheduled: 2 each for Paros, Naxos and Samos, from where it's a short hop to Turkey for my final week. Pascale has almost three weeks left in Greece, so she's going further, on an overnight ferry to Santorini.

Once we'd got back to Nafplion from Epidaurus yesterday, we had a late lunch, did some Internet, and ran a few small errands. At the end of the afternoon we crossed the hill to the pebble beach for our third consecutive day of swimming. We ran into Constantinos again, and after regaling us with some more stories (he used to be a bartender and has been married several times) he invited us to meet him for dinner at La Fanaria ("the lamps"), a taverna in the old town where we'd eaten on Sunday.

At La Fanaria we feasted on olives, greek salad and fish, with excellent white wine to wash it all down. Our table was in the entrance to an alleyway, next to the street, and towards the end of the evening we saw Michael and Natilie, another pair staying in the same hotel we were, and we invited them to join us. Michael is a tall, laid back black man from Detroit, and Natilie is short, cute and from Paris. At about 11:45 we finally said goodnight and went to bed.

This morning the alarm went off at 4:45 and we got up and went down to catch a 0610 direct train to Athens and Piraeus. ("What does the '0' stand for? '0 my God it's early'".) I slept most of the way and therefore missed the bridge crossing of the canal at Corinth, that has now made the Pelopponese, strictly speaking, an island, not a peninsula. But I woke up in time to see some of the dramatic coastline between Corinth and Athens, which is the site for the construction of a new highway which Constantinos said has outlasted several governments but should, eventually, speed the trip to Nafplion to a mere hour and a half.

Piraeus turned out to be like Algeciras, but more so: a busy, overcrowded, overpolluted port. We checked our luggage at the train station and found our way to a ticket office that sold us our respective ferry tickets. Then we headed for a much-needed coffee in a small shop tucked in a side alley, and wandered over to the Piraeus Archeological Museum, which was small but had impressive statues, funeral friezes, and pottery, mostly discovered in the Pireaus area. (The finest of the statues were found in 1959, in a warehouse where they'd been hidden in AD 86 to avoid being found by Roman General Sulla, who was sacking Athens at the time!)

After the museum, we found a good restaurant for lunch by the Zea Marina, home of Athens' largest private yachts, and I called ahead to Paros and booked a place to stay for tonight and tomorrow. Then we wandered 'round to the Maritime Museum, but it looked so uninviting from the outside that we didn't bother to go in. Instead, we slowly made our way back to the train station, to collect my pack, and then back to the port.

We wished each other bon voyage for the rest of our respective trips, and said goodbye. It's been great travelling with Pascale and I'll miss her on the islands. Another new friend to keep in touch with!

The ferry is motoring on. I'm not sure exactly how fast we're going, but based on the distance on the map would estimate our speed at around 75 kph, pretty speedy for a big ferry! I should get to Paros around 6:30, where the hostel owner will meet me at the pier.
posted by Tom at 1:41 PM | link | (0) comments

Monday, April 29, 2002 12:33
Weather: Warm & sunny.
Location: The theatre of Epidaurus.

With a spectacular backdrop of a forested valley, imposing hills, and the pale blue sky, a seat at the top of the 15,000 capacity amphitheatre (cut into the hillside) provides many advantages. Not the least of these is the chance to enjoy the acoustics: as one woman demonstrated, the sound of paper being torn or a coin being dropped on stage carries easily 60 rows back, despite the background noise from birds and the many tourists sharing the stands.

An Italian bus tour group on our left stopped on their way out, and sang an impromptu piece -- poorly, but with spirit -- and we could pick out individual words clearly. This inspired the young Spanish group on our right: a set of 10 boys had some trouble coming up with a piece they all remembered the words to, but eventually had a couple of soccer chants, punctuated by clapping.
posted by Tom at 7:39 AM | link | (0) comments

Sunday, April 28, 2002 12:32
Weather: Sunny, some light scattered cloud and haze.
Location: Internet cafe in Nafplion.

We got to Nafplion yesterday at about 3:35. Pascale and I walked together into town. She's travelling with the Greece Lonely Planet, which has rather more detail than my own LP, which covers all of the Mediterranean: her book has a map of downtown Nafplion and recommends more than one hotel, for example. We followed her map and found an excellent dhomatia up on a hill overlooking the old town, right below a ruined fortification wall, with a rooftop balcony that has a great view. They didn't have any single rooms left, so we agreed to split a double.

It was quite warm, so after unpacking we changed for swimming and walked over to the other side of the hill, where there is a pebble stone beach. The water was no warmer than at Finikoundas (i.e. pretty cold) but it was sunny so we had a good 20 minutes before getting out... and then were (predictably) somewhat cold. As we sat on a wall soaking up some rays, a Greek man came along and introduced himself as Constantinos, welcoming us to Nafplion. He's been working in the hotelling & tourism industry all his life, and has travelled and worked around the world. He was fluent in English and French, and gave us a quick test of our Greek, asking us if we remembered the words for life, book, love, horse, river, etc. I'm embarrassed to admit that we couldn't come up with them, though they seemed obvious once he gave us the answers: bios, biblios, eros, hippos, potamos. He regaled us with stories for a while, and then we all packed up.

Pascale and I went back to the dhomatia, and sat on the balcony. A French mother and her son, Ginette and Hugo, were eating a picnic salad, and we introduced ourselves and invited them to join us for dinner. They are ending up a weeklong trip to Greece, a 20th birthday present for Hugo. We all trouped down at 8 to a restaurant recommended by Constantinos on the main restaurant street of the old town. The whole old town is clearly geared to tourists -- signs are in English as often as Greek, and the waiters were fluent in English and French -- but we nonetheless enjoyed a good meal at a reasonable price.

This morning we said goodbye to the French, who were off for Epidaurus, where there's a famous amphitheatre, and on to Athens, to catch an early morning flight back to Paris tomorrow. Pascale and I munched the last of the small loaf of bread I'd bought for my hike in Kardamyli and set off to climb up the staircase to the Palamidi fortress, which overlooks the town. It's reported as 999 stairs, which the Lonely Planet calls "seemingly endless", though it didn't actually take us all that long to get up. The fortress is perched on a precarious, sloped plateau, and has spectacular views in all directions (except out the back, where there's a small carpark). We wandered around slowly, soaking in the atmosphere, and taking the occasional photo.

After a while, we decided it was time to get a coffee, and walked back down into the old town. At around noon, we split up, me to find (this) Internet cafe and update the diary, and Pascale to check out the bus schedule to Epidaurus and buy some food. We plan on having a lazy afternoon, doing some more swimming, and (rather than spending a day in Athens) going to Epidaurus for the day tomorrow. I'm not clear on how much longer we'll travel together, but it's very nice to have a companion, so the longer the better!
posted by Tom at 5:51 AM | link | (0) comments

15:05
Location: Myloi (Mili), 10 km from Argos.

A collection of rusting steam engines sit on a side track in the fragmented light of the sun through the trees. They have probably been there for 20 years, certainly 10--grass grows on some--but they wait patiently as our more modern train moves by, like cows put out to pasture.

The hills are drier and more barren here, rather like the hills in northern Morocco. The pink flowering trees are gone, but blood-red poppies have joined the white, yellow and purple alongside the track.
posted by Tom at 3:10 PM | link | (0) comments

12:55

The train is winding its way through the hills, crossing small bridges and passing through little tunnels. It's a modern two-car commuter train, in style at least, though we're actually going quite some distance, inland, and then northeast towards Argos and Athens. The bright green of the olive trees and darker green of the cypresses are enlivened by a purple flowering tree that seems quite common, and by ground flowers of yellow and white.

Sitting across the aisle from me is Pascale, a Swiss woman on a solo trek around Greece for a month. She's also heading to Nafplion, so maybe we'll do some sightseeing together.
posted by Tom at 1:10 PM | link | (0) comments

Saturday, April 26, 2002 09:32
Weather: Sunny & clear.
Location: Cafe Athanasiou in Kalamata (again).

A beautiful morning. I packed up and left Lela's dhomatia, passing the old lady herself on the way to the bus stop. She wished me bon voyage. The bus came on time at 8am and hauled me back to Kalamata. This time I had my camera ready for the spectacular view of Kardamyli as the bus clibed over the hill to the north. For the rest of the trip I was content to gaze at the wonderful scenery: the high brooding mountains, with half-ruined castles, tall cypresses, huddled villages with squat churches, and below, the glittering Mediterranean.

After my hour on the Internet yesterday, I asked the owner of the cafe for a recommendation for dinner. She told me her favorite place, the Taverna Kastro, at the north end of the village, beyond the bridge, a place that I'd barely glanced at from the bus on the way in and hadn't been out to visit since. I set off accordingly, and found a lovely restaurant that served me the best meal I've had since arriving in Greece: a fabulously fresh Greek salad, topped with a hefty slab of feta, a cheese pie, a couple of minced veal patties, grilled and served with french fries, and a pleasant quarter litre of wine.

During the meal I chatted with the retired German couple sitting next to me, Brigitta and Klaus, from Bavaria. Kardamyli has become their favorite vacation destination: they're here for five weeks!
posted by Tom at 9:43 AM | link | (0) comments

Friday, April 26, 2002 16:52
Weather: Partly cloudy, stormy in the upper mountains.
Location: Internet cafe in Kardamyli.

Oh my aching feet. Spent a lot of time hiking today, up the mountain above Kardamyli and down the Tagetos Gorge. More details when I've caught up to that point from yesterday.

Ok, I had no trouble catching the 13:10 bus yesterday, capitalizing on my previous experience with chaos of the Kalamata bus station. I'd taken a bit of a risk earlier by chaining my locked clothes pack to a discreet (and sturdy) fence just down the hill from the bus station, to avoid lugging it all over town for the morning, but it was fine there so I feel a bit smug.

On the bus to Kardamyli I met an entertaining Greek-Australian woman named Maria, who's moved back to her childhood village of Hora, up above Kardamyli. She'd been in Kalamata visiting a relative and attending the court case of a group of British air show enthusiasts who were arrested after allegedly taking pictures in restricted areas and keeping an unseemly amount of notes about aircraft types, serial numbers, etc. Seems nobody in Greece has heard of air show enthusiasts, and the military were entertaining dark thoughts about them being in collusion with the dastardly Turks. Meanwhile, she said, the British authorities had disclaimed any knowledge of the group's organization or objectives. Such are local politics...

Anyway, Maria and I had a good long conversation on the way to Kardamyli, and she invited me to stop up in her village on my hike. Her directions were pretty hazy, so I wasn't sure I would be able to find it, but I promised to try.

In Kardamyli I got a very nice room in a dhomatia with a balcony overlooking the sea and a private bathroom, for a reasonable 5 euros. I spent a relaxing afternoon, had a fairly dull dinner, and went to bed early.

This morning I got up, packed up the picnic supplies I bought yesterday, and set off up the mountain. I left on schedule at 9 am, stopping only to mail a couple of postcards, but ran into difficulties rather quickly: there are signposts right in Kardamyli pointing out the start of the paths up the mountains, but they also point towards roads that turn back into town or go up towards isolated houses, and nowhere else. In short, I got lost, and had a tough trek up cutting through farmers' olive orchards, getting myself stuck on needle-tipped thorns, etc. No matter. After some time I came up to the village of Saint Sylvia, found a couple of workmen, and got rough directions (of which I understood about 5%) up to Hora.

From there, I immediately made a wrong turn, heading up between the walls of unused fields until it became clear that I should have been on the road below to my right. I scrambled down, followed the road up for a short distance, and on faith took a turnoff to a durt road that headed off to the left. This wound its way around the hillside, providing spectacular views of the Taygetos Gorge, carved deep into the mountainside on my left. After a while, I could see that the dirt road was going to go down to the Monastery of the Savior, an abandoned monastery that was the goal for the hike. However, I still hadn't found Hora, so when a path branched off to the right and started climbing steeply upwards I took it. I followed marks blazed on the rocks up the hill face, until I came out to a village, perched on the edge of the gorge. And what do you know? I'd found it.

The village was larger than I expected, very picturesque with old stone houses on all sides. I walked straight up, looking for a hotel under construction that Maria had said was opposite her house. It turned out that the hotel wasn't very large -- only about 20 rooms in a three-story building -- so I couldn't see it from far, but it didn't matter, as Maria was coming out of her house as I came over the last rise, and greeted me.

She invited me in, and fed me tea, and told me all about the problems the Greeks have with the Turks, the court case, her life in the village, her husband from an arranged marriage who'd refused to move up to the village (so she'd left him), and so on. She gave me some tea leaves to take with me, and cut a pink rose from her garden. Finally, she walked me down the road leading to the gorge, pointing out her recently-acquired properly (steeply banking off to the left of the road) where she planned on building a small chapel and two or three workrooms for her looms. She bemoaned the pavement the village was putting in, and especially the electrical wires, that she predicted would soon spoil her view. She also wished the river in the gorge was still running, though conceded that it was serving a useful purpose, having been diverted into pipes for the local villages' running water.

I finally said goodbye, amid invitations to come back (or send friends or family), and headed off down hill towards the gorge. When I got down to the riverbed, I found that the road stopped suddenly and there was no path leading down. A path did lead up to the village on the hill opposite, but I wanted to get to the monastery, so I started making my own way down the river bed. Other than a couple of places where there had clearly been big waterfalls, and I had to divert into the overgrowth, I had no serious trouble making my way over the boulders and rocks, which were mostly quite stable, but it took a lot of attention to avoid slips and sprains.

Eventually, after passing through some precipitous canyons, I found the monastery at about 2:30. It was set not far up from the river bed, still being maintained, and (according to Maria) opened once a year for a service. It had a little church, and a couple of small residence buildings, all locked up, but it made a nice place to stop for a drink of water, some bread and chocolate, and a banana. After a while, I set off again, but once again the only alternatives to the river bed led up the hillsides towards villages. I wanted to see the gorge, so I continued down the river. From here it got a bit easier, and there were occasionally marked paths around difficult bits. It still took a good two hours further hiking to make it back down to Kardamyli.

I hope the pictures I took today come out: the terrain here is incredible. It feels mythic, if that makes any sense, as though created by supernatural force. There are caves, steep cliffs, and beautiful trees everywhere, though the cypresses are currently beginning to show the signs of a disease that's causing some of them to wither, distressingly.

Tomorrow, I'm off on an early early bus to Kalamata, so that I can catch an 11:30 train up to Argos and Nafplion. I'm starving--I'll eat well tonight--and my feet ache, so I'm going to try and get to bed early again. Andio!
posted by Tom at 12:24 PM | link | (0) comments

Thursday, April 25, 2002 9:35
Weather: Sunny.
Location: Cafe Athansiou--"flavor of sweet history"--Kalamata.

I got up early and caught the 7am bus back to Kalamata. I'm headed for Kardamyli, 37 km south of here, but the two buses per day leave at 5:30am (gah!) and 13:10. Since my bus got here half an hour ago I have some 3 1/2 hours left to kill. Hopefully one of the Internet cafes will be open.

After dinner last night (yummy chicken souvlaki) I stopped in a bar on the way home that the Brits had recommended. They weren't there, but I got a couple of games of pool in with the local guys. They were surprised that I'd heard of Finikoundas in Canada. I think they mainly see package tour groups.

The village was especially pretty this morning in the twilight. All was still (except the birds yakking their beaks off) and even the waves did no more than lap at the beach. The sun rose while I was on the bus - but by then I had my head back, asleep.
posted by Tom at 4:19 AM | link | (0) comments

Wednesday, April 24, 2002 18:24
Weather: Partly cloudy
Location: "Pizzeria" in Finikoundas

A very relaxing day, partly marred by a slight hangover from last night. Very pleasant nonetheless!

Turns out I was wrong about being the only foreigner in town, of course. At a waterfront bar I sat next to a group of about 10 young English men & women, working for the season (that is, April to October!) at a large hotel at the other end of town. They are in the process of setting up boats and gear for the tourists, who will come in groups on a weekly package tour from London, and spend most of their time sailing, windsurfing, etc. Not too bad...

They suggested a couple of restaurants for me to try, and I went to one, the large "Elena" that sits on the end of the road above the fishing boats. There, I found all the other tourists: several groups of older German and Dutch men & women. I ate well, but made the error of drinking a half litre of red wine on top of the large beer I'd had at the bar. This was then compounded by the complementary glass of cognac provided by the owner. I reeled home, still hoping to go out later to meet the Brits... and then regained consciousness and got into bed.

I slept in this morning, then got up and took advantage of the sunshine to wash and hang two days' laundry. After a lunch of moussaka and fried fish at a restaurant in the village, I picked up the paper (yes, I was wrong about that, too--the IHT is on sale in the village, to my pleasant surprise) and had a lazy afternoon reading it on the balcony of my room, having a wim, reading my book on the beach, and napping. In a burst of Roman enthusiasm back in Italy I'd picked up Gibbons' History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and I'm working my way through it, though I had to skip about 60 pages of deadly boring discussion about the appeal of the early Christian church.

Around me, Finikoundas was preparing for the tourists. A couple of buildings are under construction, and many more are getting a fresh coat of pain or renovated interior. I'm very glad I got here before the hordes.

Tomorrow I'm going to head back to Kalamata and on down the Mani coastline. There's a gorge walk to an abandoned monastery that sounds like my next hike.

One last note: looks like I'll get two Easters this year: the Greek shops are full of chocolate Easter eggs, as the orthodox church celebrates Easter on May 5th.
posted by Tom at 7:04 PM | link | (0) comments

Tuesday, April 23, 2002 16:38
Weather: Sunny, high scattered cloud, 21c.
Location: Bench by the Finikoundas beach

Well, I got very skeptical about Rick Steves when every other tourist in Cinque Terre seemed to be carrying his Italy guide, but he's certainly come up aces with Finikoundas. 'Course it helps that I've somehow seriously beaten the other tourists to the Peloponnese entirely. There were a number on the ferry from Italy, but they all headed off towards Athens, leaving me the only obvious non-Greek on the train south. There might have been a few in Kalamata, but I only saw them at the bus station, and the ones on the bus were German and got off a Pylos. So here I am in Finikoundas, a tourist town with no tourists! And a great beach all to myself!

I spent the night last night in a hotel near the train station, recommended by George. It was right in the heart of the downtown area, a curious few blocks of stylist cafes and clothing stores, with a couple of expensive hotels thrown in. (Mine was cheap, though!) I set off to try and get some dinner, but didn't pass any authentic-looking restaurants that were still open. I did make it all the way up to the market and the bus station, but they were both apparently closed or closing. Since dinner was an increasing priority, I gave in and went into a fast food sandwich place, which served a passable version of a club sandwich.

Back at the hotel, I did a day's laundry and got changed for bed. The room had a TV set, but the only thing on I could understand was a truly awful American gung-ho special forces movie, which I watched anyway.

This morning I got up, had a capuccino and a ham & cheese sandwich in a cafe nearby, and walked back up to the bus station. I arrived around 10--it seemed I'd been in the wrong place the night before, following a terrible little map I'd got from the hotel--and got a ticket for the 1pm bus to Finikoundas. That gave me a couple of hours to try and get up to the castle (though the entrance was barred due to renovations, I still got a great view from the little outdoor amphitheatre below) and down to the port. I passed a number of newspaper stands, but had no luck finding a paper in English. (No real surprise--they could hardly bring them in in time by bus or train, and they would sell such low volumes that a local print run wouldn't make sense.)

Back at the hotel, I made a quick washroom stop (I've learned to treasure free washrooms!), hoisted my pack, and headed off for the bus station.

Waiting for the bus I got into a curiously one-sided conversation with the little man sitting next to me, who heard me speak one or two words of Greek and then launched into a full unintelligible flow. I tried to indicate my incomprehension, but he was having none of it, and seemed quite happy to assume my responses and continue when I failed to contribute my half of the dialogue. I have no idea what he was on about, but he was smiling so I smiled back.

At a quarter to one, a series of buses pulled through the station. A group of six or seven would enter, wait five or ten minutes, and pull off. None of them seemed to say Finikoundas (and I should point out that my ability to read Greek characters has unaccountably lept ahead of my vocabulary, still stuck on about word #4) but at five to one I asked the ticket agent and he pointed out the right bus to me. (Its primary destination--Pylos--was the one marked on the front.)

I had an enjoyable 2 1/2 hour trip, winding through the hills and dropping at length into Pylos, Methoni, and at last Finikoundas. I had no trouble finding a dhomatia--privately rented room--and I dumped my stuff, changed, and went for my first swim. The water was cold, but with the hot sun it was still great!

I could stay here in the sun forever, but I think it's about time for more sunscreen. Andio!
posted by Tom at 5:00 PM | link | (0) comments

Greek words to remember for today:

yasu/yasas (Hello)
andio (Goodbye)
sas efkharisto (Thank you)
signome (Excuse me)
milate anglika? (Do you speak English?)

18:37

We changed trains in Kyparissia and are now on a smaller commuter train to Kalamata. This last leg cuts across the Peloponnese, leaving the coastline behind and skirting some tree-covered mountains before turning south again. There are some gloomy coulds overhead, and even a few raindrops, but it looks like it's clearer to the south, where we're going.

I've enlisted some help to find a hotel in Kalamata: George, a covernment official on his weekly trip down to Kalamata to teach an economics course there. From what he told me, it sounds like there will be a few choices, with the nicests ones by the beach. I think maybe I was prattling on a bit too much about my trip though: he's taken his radio up to the other end of the car to listen to it and look out at the scenery...
posted by Tom at 6:55 PM | link | (0) comments

4pm

Location: onboard the Patras-Kalamata train, just past Kavissila.

It's a beautiful day, and I'm getting a good introduction to the ways and tempos of Greece. The train I'm on is ancient but clean, winding down the west coast of the Poloponnesian Peninsula, past vineyards and orchards of oranges and lemons. The country seems on a par with Portugal, in terms of wealth, with arguably less infrastructure but also none of the pervasive sense of disappointment with the present that I picked up in Lisbon. Greece is moving forward, but taking its own sweet time.

I've decided to head for Kalamata today, which will get me in late, but close enough to Finikoundas, on the southwest corner, for an easy trip tomorrow morning. I am obviously a bit concerned about finding somewhere to stay in Kalamata at 8pm, so I may yet change my mind and hop off earlier.
posted by Tom at 4:15 PM | link | (0) comments

Monday, April 22, 2002 12:28
Weather: Sunny, scattered cloud, slightly hazy, warm.
Location: On the deck of the Superfast II, arriving in Patras.

A wonderful crossing. I've never been a big fan of ferries, and have been frequently queasy on 1-2 hour crossings (e.g. Spain-Morocco), so I had some trepidation about a 16 hour overnight trip, but my fears were unfounded. The sea could hardly have been more calm, and there was no perceptable roll to the vessel, so that I would probably have been comfortable even without the upgrade to a single cabin. It wasn't cheap--€44--but it certainly was quiet and very comfortable. I slept for a good 11 hours (!) (12 if you count the time change) and missed the stop at Igoumenitsa completely (along with breakfast in the dining room).

Throughout the morning we've been cruising down the coast of Greece. Steep mountainous coastlines appear on both sides--there are a lot of islands--but we're storming past them and are right on time for our arrival. The ferry has just pulled behind the breakwater and is startling up clouds of seagulls.

Patras looks like a large, fairly ugly city, but I'm not planning on staying for long: there's a train for the south at 2:20. I'm not sure where I'm aiming for just yet, but I guess I'll be able to play it by ear.
posted by Tom at 12:45 PM | link | (0) comments

Location: Onboard Superfast II ferry, anchored in Bari.
Weather: Partly cloudy.

A long, fairly tedious day, but ending according to plan. I got up early, had a cold show (not by choice - the water heater seems to have packed it in), a light breakfast, and was off to the train station. I managed to buy some stamps and post some last postcards from Rome before getting on my train, a Eurostar express. This one was one of the old style, painted red with a bullet train-styled nose rather than the now prevalant green TGV-style in use across Europe.

The train left on time, and gradually took me across the country, passing parallel to an impressive Roman aqueduct for a while. We stopped at Cassino, whose monastery was perched on a mountaintop high above the town. I believe it was fairly comprehensively flattened during the war, so this must be the new and improved model. As we pushed on, the blue skies were replaced by more ominous grays, dark clouds that hung over the hills.

Finally we arrived, at about a quarter to 3. I checked my bag into the left luggage and went off to find the port. This was unexpectedly difficult, despite a couple of large bus maps, as the port's ferry traffic appears insufficient to rate it much attention by the town. Absolutely everything in town seemed to be closed, and I still didn't have a ferry ticket, or, for that matter, a backup plan. With the help of a couple of police officers, I managed to find the port. All the ticket offices outside were closed tight, but a terminal building inside the port itself was open, so I was able to get a ticket. My 1st class Eurail pass got me a free couchette (6 euros for the port tax), and I was told I could upgrade to a cabin onboard the ship.

With major relief, I set off back towards the train station. I stopped at a luxurious cafe I'd passed on the south side of the old walled town and had a delicious meal--Mediterranean salad, a bowl of pasta, water and a glass of white wine--hoping to avoid having to have dinner on the ferry. (My appetite gets wonky due to easy sea sickness.)

I've retrieved my bag and checked onto the ferry. It's still over an hour before our scheduled departure, and apparently I can't request a cabin until the Pursar's office opens, one hour after our 8pm sailing. Still, it wouldn't kill me to sleep in the couchette, so either way I think I'll be pretty happy with this trip.
posted by Tom at 6:58 PM | link | (0) comments

Saturday, April 20, 2002 13:15
Weather: Gorgeous, not too hot, sunny
Location: Lava-blu laundramat, Rome

A spectacular day, but I've got a lot of travel to do starting tomorrow morning to get to Greece, so I'm concentrating on errands today. Laundry, booking travel arrangements, and (hopefully) getting a haircut -- and maybe a nice wander around the Palatine hill later on.

Most of yesterday afternoon was spent catching up on the diary, ample evidence that I need to stay on top of it. Afterwards I wandered up to see the Trevi fountain and found a café to read the Herald Tribune. For a change of pace I decided to see a movie in the evening. English language options are helpfully listed in the IHT's Italy Daily insert. With the help of the café's cashier, I located the cinema on the map, southwest of me on the other side of the river, and walked down to it.

It was a beautiful evening. I picked up a couple of pieces of pizza to much on as I walked. The river was calm, lined with trees and quiet avenues. I crossed at the Ponte Sisto, an elegant pedestrian bridge, and had a wonderful view upstream with the dome of St. Peter's lit up by the sunset looming over the trees, and birds wheeling in the sky. The cinema was a few blocks further through some narrow winding streets, clearly older in layout and construction than the wider vias of the east shore. The neighbourhood, the Trastevere, seems to be full of atmospheric bars and restaurants, and I'll probably try to get back there for dinner tonight.

From a short list of options I decided to see "Monster's Ball". I enjoyed the movie, though its themes were obviously oriented towards the American issues of capital punishment and racial integration in the south, and didn't seem to travel that easily when viewed from Canadian eyes in Europe. As the loudmouth in the row behind me pointed out at the end, the plot was pretty preposterous. Still, the acting was great--I'm a fan of Billy Bob Thornton, and Halle Berry wasn't bad--and there were some moments of surprising humour mixed in with real sadness. Worth the €5, anyway.

I slept in in the morning and had a surprisingly tasty breakfast of instant coffee and little cakes (provided with the apartment as the breakfast included in the B&B price) before heading out to do my laundry.

I think the dryer's almost done. Time to say goodbye to the little girl sitting next to me, Jenny, and get on with the rest of my day.

[later]

18:00

Frustrating waste of time trying to book my ferry ticket. The second phone number I have for Superfast Ferries also goes to a fax machine, and the only travel agency I could find that was open, in the Termini train station, sent me around to three different desks (wait time of 20-30 minutes each) before telling me they couldn't, in fact, book ferry tickets. At least I got the train ticket to Bari set.

Incidentally, though Brindisi is closer to Greece than Bari, it's worth noting that during the "winter" (apparently still on) there aren't any trips from Brindisi to Patras, only to Corfu and Igoumenitsa. Bari has a ferry to Patras that stops briefly in Igoumenitsa, so that's where I'm going. Hopefully I won't have any trouble booking the ferry trip at the ferry office itself!
posted by Tom at 11:58 AM | link | (0) comments

Friday, April 19, 2002 15:00
Weather: Warm and sunny, hurray!
Location: Internet café off Piazza Venezia, Rome

Oh dear, lots to get caught up on! How did this happen? Back to Wednesday...

Wednesday, April 17

I got up, packed up, had a little of the breakfast Marina had left out for me Tuesday night (a boxed juice and a wrapped croissant, not too interesting) and picked up a cappucino in the village bar before saying goodbye to Civita and walking out onto the footbridge. It was a cool day with scattered clouds. Just as I arrived at the far side of the bridge, Franco passed me on his scooter and pulled over at the side. He offered me a ride to Viterbo in his car, but as I wasn't sure of the train situation from there I decided to stick to catching the bus from Bagnoregio to Orvieto as I originally planned.

On the bus I had a long conversation with a woman who was visiting the area to look for a house to buy. She was originally Swedish, but had lived in Sicily for the last 25 years, and was now going to sell her shop and retire to the country.

At the train station I had a wait of about 50 minutes before catching a train to Rome. We seemed to stop at quite a few stations on the way in, so I was glad I'd had a couple of sandwiches in the train station's cafe before getting on. It was after 1pm when we arrived and I set out to find a place to stay.

First stop was the station's tourist office, where I picked up a map and a "what's on" guide. (Not much, seems to be the answer.) Then I figured out the subway system. There are two lines, but neither of them goes particularly close to the downtown area, which is a bit annoying. I needed to get downtown to find the "B&B Italia" office. I took line A to Colosseo, which seemed to be the closest stop to downtown, and walked out into the sunshine directly across the street from the Colosseum, which felt a bit like diving into the deep end of Roman history. Shouldering my pack, I set out along the Via dei Fori Imperiali, until I got to a bus stop and hopped on the first thing to arrive going in my direction. Should have checked its destination, I guess: it turned right at Via del Corso (the main street) and I wanted to go along Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, on the left, so I got off and walked across, past the Pantheon, a couple of monuments, any number of other ancient churches, and a bazillion outdoor cafés.

Lonely Planet had B&B Italia listed as Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 282, but listed as somewhere completely different on the map, which confused me a bit. Assuming the street number was correct, I walked to 282, at the far end of the street, which seemed to be in an old palazzo with no signs of B&B Italia at all. Cursing a bit, I worked out that the map must have been right and the street number wrong. I tried to phone them but had no answer, so I started to head back to the other end of Vittorio Emanuele. I found the place marked on the map, but again there was no sign of B&B Italia. I was now starting to get cranky. I found another phone, and this time was able to get an answer: they were at #284. So I walked back along Vittorio Emanuele again, and found the place, which had no sign at all. The doorman pointed the way when I asked for it.

Once inside I sat down while a lady looked up possible places and made a couple of phone calls. It took a little while, but she got me a single room with a private bathroom for €45/night, not bad, a bit of a hike from downtown but on the subway. I got directions and set out again to find it. After some hunting I found a newsagent who could sell me bus tickets, then hopped a bus that went all the way back to Termini, the train station, from where I'd started three hours prior. From there it was a relatively easy matter to get down to Re de Roma station and find the place.

I was met there by a father and son who showed me in. It gradually dawned on me that the B&B was actually a whole furnished apartment, with kitchen, and I had the place to myself! It's huge, comfortable, and very newly renovated, so quite a find.

I unpacked, did some laundry, and set out shortly after 5pm to orient myself. I seemed to be in a relatively recent residential neighbourhood, with little to see and a certain lack of interesting places to eat as well. I walked west and after 20 minutes came to the Colosseum again. On the far side I found the Roman forum, and strolled through the ruins towards the Piazza Venezia, where I found a café and read the Herald Tribune, sipping a cappucino, watching the people go by, and gradually losing the stress from the day.

I set off down Via del Plebiscito towards the Campo de Fiori neighbourhood (a good restaurant area), but paused (for 70 minutes!) in an Internet café to try and catch up on my Blogging. (Failed completely, I'm afraid, hence today's backlog.)

I eventually found a very good but unnamed Osteria a couple of blocks west of the Piazza Navona, and went in. All the tables were full, but I was told I could have a table in ten minutes. Shortly after me, a couple of women came in and asked for a table, and were told 20 minutes. They started discussing whether or not to wait in English, so I asked them if they'd like to join me when I got a table, which they did. They introduced themselves as Chloe Browne, an Oxford student studying in Bologna, and her mother Jane, who lives in North Wales. We enjoyed a delicious meal. I explained that I was travelling alone through Italy, and asked if I might join them for sightseeing the following day. We made arrangements to meet at the Ottaviano-San Pietro station, to go around the Vatican museum.

By the time we were finished dinner it was almost midnight, so we walked south to Vittorio Emanuele II and caught a bus to Termini, near their hotel and from where I planned to take the subway to Re di Roma. Unfortunately (and bizarrely) the subway system closes at midnight, so this didn't work out for me and I caught a taxi from Termini rather than try and figure out which bus was going that way.

Thursday, April 18

I met Chloe and Jane and we found a café for some breakfast before joining the queue outside the Vatican museum. It was a huge line up, but moved quickly, and within 30 minutes we were inside. We decided to try and see the Sistine Chapel first, but without a map we followed the large groups of people heading in that direction and went through, in sequence: a hallway of rich tapestries; a hall painted with wonderful maps of Italy; the Stanze di Rafaello, a series of apartments whose frescoes and artworks were planned and in many cases painted by Rafael; the Borgese Apartments, currently housing an excellent collection of modern art; and finally (hours later) the Sistine Chapel.

The collection was staggering in size, richness, and quality, but I found a couple of things particularly interesting. The first was the modern art collection, started relatively recently (1976) when the Papacy called a meeting with a number of important artists and worked out that religious art had stagnated because it was being forcefully channeled into classical styles, not changing with the times. The modern art collection represents a continuing effort to collect new works, and many of the works represented were interesting and compelling. One that we found particularly pleasant was a wonderful painting titled "Trip to the Ecumenical Council", by Fernando Botero, painted in the style of a children's novel with a pink-robed cardinal on his way through the woods, with birds and animals on all sides.

After the Sistine Chapel (words fail here) we passed through a long hallway of books, globes, maps and various gadgets and came to the halfway point of the tour, where we stopped for lunch. The Vatican's self-service restaurant turns out to have surprisingly good food at quite reasonable prices.

After lunch we picked up the tour in the courtyard of the Belvedere, which has a wonderful globe in the middle that looks a bit like the Death Star from Return of the Jedi. Then we toured a section of Roman Statuary and started through the Etruscan museum before being summarily kicked out at 3:30 when the museums closed.

From outside the museums, we walked around to the right and came to the Piazzo St. Pietro, an amazing, mind-bogglingly huge square with an immense number of columns and statues. We went up to the cupola of St. Peter's basilica, which had a superb view of the city, and then went through the basilica itself, coming in partway through an evensong mass. (Music was provided by two superb tenor soloists, amplified through the building by discreet loudspeakers).

Finally we walked along the Via dello Conciliazione to Castel Sant'Angelo, an old castle originally built by the Romans as a tomb for the Emperor Hadrian (of English wall fame) and since used as a castle (complete with Papal escape route from the Vatican) and a church. Dinner was at the Hostaria Giulia. We finished the day relatively early, about 10pm, and went to our respective beds.

Friday, April 19

Today! (Caught up!)

Got up a bit later and walked along to the Colosseum again. I met Chloe and Jane outside the subway station and after a quick coffee went in to have a look at the Colosseum itself. It was very impressive, though it seems to me that it might not hurt, in this specific example, to renovate and rebuild the colosseum as a living museum, and bring it back to its former appearance.

From there we walked into the Forum and were intercepted by a tour guide who offered us a free tour (as a promotion for other tours offered by her company). We went along, and gradually a large group built up. Julia, the guide, was from Australia, and had an extensive and entertaining patter about the buildings and sites that make up the Forum. I'd known that most of the Forum was ruined because building material had been stolen for other buildings (notably St. Peter's) but hadn't realized that the main reason there was anything still there was that the whole thing had been covered in 80' of silt from various floodings of the Tiber.

After the tour, Jane and Chloe and I went to a little bar near the Teatro Marcello for a sandwich lunch, and then I said goodbye. They're spending a last afternoon looking around before leaving Rome tomorrow, and I wanted to slow down a bit, get caught up on my 'netting, and find a newspaper.

Ok, I'm up to date. So what do I think of Rome? Well, the traffic is nuts, the people are all in a hurry and it's a massive city... But it's fascinating and incredible to be here at the centre of the ancient world, surrounded by so much wonderful art, architecture and history. I could never hope to see everything that's worth seeing here, and am not going to be able to even see all of the most important sights before I leave on Sunday (or maybe Monday). It's unique, humbling, and inspirational. I bought a copy of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" today. 'nuff said.
posted by Tom at 9:34 AM | link | (0) comments

No time to finish to posts now... The internet café is closing and kicking me out. Paul, thanks for your summary!
posted by Tom at 2:22 PM | link | (0) comments

Note from Paul
Tuesday, April 16, 2002, 7:00 am (EST)
Location: Brooklyn, New York

This is a brief summary of the rest of my trip in Spain, from Kelly’s flight back to Toronto on Tuesday, April 9 until my departure on Sunday, April 14. (Kelly’s description of our trip to Santiago de Compostela, after the departure of Patrick and Tom, is posted below, dated April 8). Those interested exclusively in the Tom-centric main plot may skip this section.

Kelly and I arrived by night train at Chamartin station in Madrid early on Tuesday, April 9. We’d had the four-to-a-compartment couchettes, which were reasonably comfortable, but the train was full and overheated, so neither of us had slept well. Kelly’s flight was fairly early that morning, so we took a cab to the airport. (For the record, despite this, Madrid has hands-down the best public transit to a major airport I’ve ever seen – quick, clean, efficient and cheap subway access (50 Euro cents).)

After Kelly had booked in, I took the subway downtown and found a café near the hostel we’d stayed at before (I’d booked a room for that night before leaving). It was still too early to check in, so I picked a paper and settled in for breakfast.

For most of the trip, I tried to read a greater or lesser amount of the main paper (El Pais) each day, both for language practice and to get a sense of what was going on in the country (and the rest of the world). El Pais seems to occupy about the same space as Le Monde – centre leftish, with the largest circulation and general acknowledgement as the paper of record. (A selected translation is included as a supplement in the local Herald Tribune.) It proudly trumpets its founding date (1976 or thereabouts) on the front cover, and by implication its impeccable post-Franquist credentials.

Some of the major preoccupations in Spain in the time I was there, a couple of them particularly interesting to a Canadian observer:

- The death of the leading taurine journalist, Joaquin Vidal, a fixture on the scene for over twenty years. This caused a huge outpouring of grief and remembrance. The writer was admired even by non-aficionados, I gathered, in equal measure for his brilliant literary style and for his preoccupation with the decline of the spiritual purity of the traditional fiesta in the face of crass commercialism.
- The Middle East, particularly with Powell’s stop-over. As a generalization, not a whole lot of pro-Israel sentiment to be found.
- Separatism and terrorism. The government is trying to put through a bill (the “Law of Parties”) to ban what sounds like the political wing of the ETA (think Sinn Fein) amidst loud accusations of political oppression and of inadvertently helping the terrorist cause. On a more pacific note, I read a lot about Catalan separatism, including a stupefyingly tedious editorial by the head of the most separatist party, which could have been plagiarized from the Bloc Quebecois. Of course, the federalization of Europe makes the debate more nuanced than the Canadian equivalent, but it’s pretty serious, with plenty of language politics wrapped up in it.
- Entry into the G-8. Perhaps not more (or less) unreasonable than Canada’s presence, for a country with 39 million people and a growing economy.

Later in the morning, I went to check in at the hostel. Fortunately, I was able to extend my reservation until Saturday. Since my room was ready, I went in for a nap which lasted most of the afternoon. With the day mostly gone, I went for a long walk around the city in the evening, then to bed.

On Wednesday, my main plan was to see the Reina Sofia museum, the one major art gallery none of us had been to the week before. After a late start (I picked up a cold somewhere along the way, and hadn’t been sleeping well) I spent a couple of hours at a very pleasant café just off the Paseo del Prado. With more luck than skill I packed up and headed to the museum just as the sky clouded over and the daily rain began.

The museum is in a converted palace, reasonably well laid out, although not the masterpiece of the Thyssen-Bornemisza renovation. Nice views of the city from the external elevators. The museum was busy but not unpleasantly crowded. A disproportionate number of the visitors were French, away on Easter vacation. Mostly travelling en famille, though, rather than the more alarming rampaging hordes of French schoolchildren.

The ground floor exhibition was a special exhibition of collaborative works by Warhol, Basquiat and Clemente from New York in the early 80s. These were large canvases with silk-screened corporate logos and deliberately crude, childish painted shapes and figures. Despite the best efforts of the audio-guide, I couldn’t see much in most of them.

The permanent collection, on the other hand, is superb. The major part of the collection is Spanish modern work, with large collections of work by Miro, Dali and Picasso (including Guernica, of course, which is a painting for which scale really matters, and it’s far more impressive than in reproductions). There were also some very good works by Spanish artists I didn’t know, including Jose Gutierrez Solana and the sculptor Pablo Gargallo (he did the sculptures in the Palau de Musica in Barcelona). In front of the one Francis Bacon painting I chatted briefly with an elderly Irish tourist. She complained that although Bacon lived his last years in Madrid, he had bequeathed his studio to Ireland, to be kept intact, which had been quite a hassle to deal with. Apparently it can be visited in Dublin.

The next day, Thursday, I went down to Atocha train station, again not too early, to book a ticket for Toledo. Despite earlier thoughts, I’d decided to stick to Madrid and environs for the rest of the week. Andalucia will have to wait for another vacation.

The train to Toledo took just over an hour, passing through the suburbs and then across the dry plateau (maybe it only rains in the cities in Spain). The station at Toledo is in the river valley, with a steep walk up to the hill-top city located in a bend in the river. It’s an impressive location, and the way into the city passes by stretches of the old Moorish city wall.

At the top of the hill, dominating the skyline, is the Alcazar, the old city castle. It’s mostly a reconstruction, having been largely destroyed in the course of an extended siege and battle – circa 1936. Inscribed above the main entrance is the motto “Todo por la Patria”. Inside is a museum dedicated to the heroism of the – nationalist – defenders of the city and castle in that battle. Unfortunately, it’s only open in the morning, so I couldn’t go inside. I was later told that the museum includes one heavily shelled, ruined command room which has been left in that state.

Most of Toledo consists of twisty little medieval streets and old buildings. There’s scaffolding and construction everywhere. Everyone in the city who isn’t selling things to the many tourists seems to be involved in construction/renovation work. Lots of Japanese tour groups here, the first I’d run across.

Other than wandering the streets, I spent most of the rest of the day in the cathedral. It’s a very large, airy gothic building with a wide nave and aisles. Although they don’t charge for admittance to the church per se, given that it’s a working church, there is a fee during the afternoon to visit the museums contained in the old chapterhouse and other side rooms. And you can only get into the church if you have a ticket to the museums. A somewhat subtle distinction perhaps.

The most notable thing in the cathedral itself is the highly decorated, mostly late gothic choir. The choir is very large, and only accessible from the East, with seats around the other three sides. Behind each of the seats is a high-relief wood carving of scenes from the reconquest. These are carved in extraordinary militaristic detail, with little wooden Spaniards storming battlements with ladders, cannon, crossbows and muskets, while little wooden turbaned Moors drop rocks on their heads. Queen Isabel appears in most of the scenes, looking regal on horseback, and watching the proceedings or graciously accepting the keys to the city from Boabdil & Co.

Next to the chapel of the Sacred Heart is a memorial erected to celebrate the spirit of 1968, as experienced in Spain:

D.O.M.
IN PERENNEM MEMORIAM CVNCTORVM SACERDOTVM ISTIVS DIOECESEOS QVI AB ANNO MCMXXXVI SAEVIENTE PERSECVTIONE MARTYRIVM SVBIERE SANCTA TOLETANA ECCLESIA HOC PIVM MNEMOSION A. MCMLXVIII
D.O.C.

The “museum” collections in the cathedral are also quite extraordinary. One room, a separate chapel no longer in use, has a number of El Greco pictures of evangelists and apostles, as well as a great Caravaggio of a young St. John the Baptist, and works by Rafael, Zurbaran and others. An adjoining room has a large collection of tapestries and vestments, including an Arab tapestry allegedly captured in battle in 1340.

On the train back into the city I met a French woman, Frederique, who was staying with her sister in Madrid but largely travelling on her own, and we made plans to meet for lunch the next day.

Back in Madrid I went out for supper to a Galician restaurant next to the Los Gabrieles tavern that Kelly and I had been to earlier. Desperate for vegetables, I ordered a salad from the disdainful waiter (I’m no vegetarian, but the Spanish diet really is a bit dogmatically carnivorous.) Iceberg lettuce and tasteless tomatoes, predictably. I chatted with the middle-aged Australian couple sitting at the next table with their son. They were running errands, having dropped off their daughter for a semester at Trinity School, Port Hope (yes, the one outside Toronto), stopped by to see friends in Chicago and museums in New York, and were more or less on their way home, no doubt remembering to pick up the milk and a loaf of bread on the way. Those crazy Australians.

Friday was another slow start followed by a long breakfast. I met Frederique for lunch at 2:00 outside the giant FNAC bookstore near Puerta del Sol. She speaks very good English, having done part of high school in Rochester and an MBA in Texas (but anti-American, of course, for all of that) and works in the risk management department for a small French bank. Thanks to a combination of the French 35 hour week and flex-time, she had some improbably vast amount of vacation time she was being forced to use up. We had a long lunch and made tentative plans to meet the next day at the archeological museum, which she was going to anyhow and I said I would go to unless I made other plans to head out of town.

Saturday I slept in again (the cold still), so didn’t make it out of town. Went to the archeological museum for 2:00 and met Frederique. We did a quick tour through the Roman engineering exhibit, then down to the permanent exhibition on the lower floors. That was where things got weird. She was feeling unwell and sat down to rest, then quite suddenly started to throw up and at the same time passed out and fell over sideways unnaturally on the bench – I was standing not far away and saw this happen. Very alarming indeed for a few seconds as I rushed over, until she (quickly) regained consciousness and I confirmed she was breathing.

The museum staff were very helpful in getting water and so forth and helping getting her cleaned up. She said it wasn’t something that had happened before, and thought it might have been food poisoning, maybe combined with fatigue from travelling. Who knows.

When she was feeling a little stronger, I got a cab to take us to her sister’s place; her sister was supposed to be out for the afternoon. As it turned out, the sister was there, along with her Spanish roommate and the roommate’s boyfriend. After a shower, Frederique was feeling much better. I certainly hope it doesn’t turn out to have been anything more serious. I stayed for a coffee and to talk for a while; her (much younger) sister was doing graduate work in archeology, coincidentally, with a focus on Peru.

So I didn’t get to see the rest of the museum, but I did get to do a good deed, and also to see how real Madrilenos live, in a high-rise apartment in an anonymous section of the city. Not that it was as dreary as that sounds - kind of a fun, studentish sort of apartment, full of clutter and objects and a large collection of the boyfriend’s world music. The most remarkable thing in it perhaps was the world’s largest house plant, a monster with tentacles running all along the ceiling and down several walls of the living room. They called it the “extra roommate”.

That evening I went for a final walk around the city and then to a late showing of the latest Almodovar film, Hable con Ella, which had just had a great success in the Paris film festival. It’s a beautiful movie and a lot funnier than it ought to be, given the subject matter. I’ll have to see it again with subtitles, as my Spanish isn’t nearly good enough to pick up all the dialogue, though I could follow the plot without trouble.


Thanks, Tom – all the best for the rest of the trip.

posted by Paul at 1:16 AM | link | (0) comments

20:05
Location: in front of the church in Civita's square

It's 8pm, and Civita is closing its doors and going home. There are a few residents here--at least, lights on in a few houses suggest there are--but the streets are, for the moment, occupied only by the last of the film crew to pack up for the day, and me. And it's getting a bit cold, so I'm going inside to finish this there.

[2 minutes later]

Much better. When I'd finished my previous diary entry, about 1pm, Franco was just coming back to the B&B/restaurant with a scooter loaded with bottles of water and cans of tomatoes. I followed him inside and sat down at a table next to an American couple in their late 50's, Mary and Larry Rankin. Larry is a truck driver, while Mary retired from her work last year. Her retirement present was two weeks' holiday in Italy, which they were extending to three: her first trip over, while Larry had (in an earlier life) been stationed in France. They were obviously having the time of their lives.

As I chatted with them, Franco and Marina (his assistant chef) brought me out the following meal, without me ordering at all:
- a bottle of water, 1/2 litre of red wine, and basket of fresh bread
- bruschetta dripping with olive oil, herbs and chopped tomatoes
- gnocchi with a savory tomato sauce
- a mixed green salad with balsamic vinegar & salt
- pork sausage, split in two and fried
- espresso.
By the time I'd finished all of that, Mary and Larry were long gone, and I needed to lie down!

In the mean time, the restaurant had filled up with film crew types, and Franco got very busy. He stopped to tell me that they were exhausting his pantry, so he would need to settle up with me and then head out shopping for the afternoon, leaving me once again in charge of the B&B. He will likely not be back until after I leave tomorrow. By the time the crowd had left, it was 3pm. Incidentally, that feast he'd served me? €14 - about C$20.

I gave him one of my postcards from Toronto, with a personal thank you for his hospitality and great food. Turns out Franco has been to Toronto many times, so I invited him to call on me the next time he's in town.

I set out again, this time looking for a way to get over to the town on the hilltop to the left of Civita. This time, I had less luck than in the morning. I saw a lot of the newer buildings in Bagnoregio, nice semi-detached brick houses with a vague resemblance to an older Italian style, but didn't find a way across. (I probably could have walked along the highway to get to it, but the clouds were starting to look ominous so I circled back.)

In the early evening I milled around somewhat aimlessly, still too full from lunch to think about eating. I decided (around 7pm) to go through the Etruscan tunnel again and this time see where the path led. It turned left, and descended steeply through a thin forest towards the valley. When it swung right again, I came across another sign post similar to the trail sign from this morning. I'd found the trail to the Montiglione rock formation, but as the light was starting to get suspect and I wasn't in any case wearing the right footwear I went back up to Civita again. Hopefully I'll have time to tackle it tomorrow morning before I leave. It's only supposed to take 15 minutes from the sign post.

Back in Civita, I felt I could now manage a slice of pizza. Unfortunately the pizza place had closed while I was down working up an appetite. The bar next door was still open, so I had a cappucino, a bag of chips, and my apple from yesterday for dinner--and I'm feeling full again, so that's just fine.

The only bad thing today was how quickly I managed to finish reading About a Boy (Nick Hornby), my last book. With luck, I'll be able to pick up something else in Rome tomorrow.
posted by Tom at 8:58 PM | link | (0) comments

Tuesday, April 16, 2002 12:03
Weather: Sunny morning, but the clouds are moving in
Location: Civita square

I woke up early and had a shower. I wanted to get out and see the area before the light got too flat. I was also expecting Franco to show up at any minute, hoping for a coffee )as the second part of the "B&B" is supposedly included here). I went out into the square to sit and read my book.

The film crew (actually a Brazillian soap opera, apparently) started mustering and got to work on dismantling some of their gear from the day before. A man passing offered me some of their coffee, and as I couldn't think of a reason to decline I politely said "grazie" and went and got some. It was delicious.

At 9:30 or so, I decided not to wait for Franco any more and set off down the bridge to Bagnoregio. Walking back to the point where I'd hopped off the bus took a while: it was, according to a sign when I got there, about 2 1/2 km. I stopped in a small bakery and picked up a pastry and went and explored a little park, which had a tall three-sided pyramid dedicated to the village's war dead -- from 1867.

I took a left and turned onto a side road heading down into the valley. There was an incessant din of birdsong, the occasional clang of goat- and cowbells, and the occasional buzz of a car engine as it roared by me at warp 6. They all seemed to drive at top speed down the narrow road, and I was curious as to how close they would come to colliding, but never saw two at once.

The road turned back and forth as it descended, and I walked on. I passed a woman walking the other way, who seemed to have rather a dour expression, but she brightened to a smile when I said "buongiorno". A farmer on one side of the road was ploughing a tiny field with a hand-propelled plough. I wondered briefly about what kind of crop he could possibly grow that would make such a small field pay.

Eventually, I came to a paved trail climbing steeply up to my left towards Civita. A sign post described the trail up to the village, and I copied it into my notebook. As I was doing so, two dirt bike riders drove up the trail; one soon returned and continued up the road.

I started up the trail, which clibed up steeply, passing a farm house that seemed to be under renovation. Soon thereafter I came to a view point, but from here the reality of the trail diverged sharply from the signpost's suggestions. There was a dirt track going upwards, but it seemed to be a farmer's lane, and when I got to the top of that it opened into a field, with no further signposts. On the far side of the field I found a further trail, but this one was narrow and overgrown. Feeling more and more like Indiana Jones cutting through the jungle, I continued up, crossing a couple of fences and stepping through a gate, until I found the signs of an ancient staircase leading up. I followed this, and it wound up to the cliff walls of Civita, where it met a more travelled path leading left, to the Etruscan tunnel under the village, and right, up a broader stair past ancient animal pens cut into the rock to the village's "back door".

I came back to Civita shortly before noon. Immediately I ran into the first of a couple of groups of American tourists who'd invaded during my hike. It's amazing how much they stand out, all with cameras and piercing voices: "oh Joyce you must come and see this over here, there's this beautiful flower arrangement"... etc.
posted by Tom at 12:42 PM | link | (0) comments

20:19
Location: Civita B&B dining room, Civita di Bagnoregio, Italy



Well, as you'll gather from the location, I made it. (See the first post for today for an explanation). And what a spot: I'm sitting along in the B&B--Franco the owner and his daughter Elisabetta have gone home for the night, presumably to Bagnoregio, the town next door, leaving me the keys and a half litre of wine. The dining room seats 38, has a 15 foot high ceiling of vaulted wood painted dark brown, and a small fireplace. The room still smells vaguely of smoke from the fire they had going earlier in the day.

And what a wonderful village. It's perched precariously on top of a steep hillside, with sharp and sudden drops on all sides, so there's no room for new construction even if it were desired. And who would desire it? Each building is ancient, feels ancient, and fits to perfection.

I was a bit worried about tourists here, after finding Cinque Terre packed with Rick Steves-toting Americans. He's the guy whose book put me on to this place, too, to be fair. But here, I needn't have worried: not only am I the only guest in the only B&B in town, but there was an entire film crew in the middle of the village today (their equipment is still scattered around) so my visit hardly warranted a second glance from the stunned locals, and I slipped unobtrusively through the village when I went for a wander.

I'll undoubtably have more to write about Civita tomorrow, so I'll skip back a bit and describe the journey here. From Florence to Orvieto was a smooth, event-free trip on an Intercity express. Orvieto was a very pleasant surprise. I had an hour to kill there before my bus to Bagnoregio, so I took the funicular up to the town and poked around. It is reasonably large, but very attractive, set (as is Civita) on top of a hill. I should pause to explain that the terrain around here is really interesting: a bit like the mesas of Arizona, only with lots of foliage (and fauna). The lower parts of the hills are normal, covered in forests or farms, but there are often upper parts that seem to be made of quite different stuff, plateaus surrounded by steep cliffs that extend up about 50 or 100 feet from the hillside. Hence the lucky strategic positions of the towns and villages, and their marvellous views.

Anyway, I poked around Orvieto for a little while, stopping in to see the church (big, old, incorporating the ruins of something even older) and picking up some food in a grocery store (bread, chocolate, apples, cheese). Then I stopped in the post office to get stamps for a couple of postcards, and when back to the funicular to go down to the station and catch my bus.

The bus' route went past a local technical college and through a half dozen hillside towns and villages before coming to Bagnoregio. There were a few other passengers, all young women who had the look of students on their way home from class. They all got off before me.

In the last few minutes of the trip, the bus went along a road that ran parallel to Bagnoregio and provided a glorious view of Civita, stuck on its own little rock at the far end. My camera was buried, so I wasn't able to get a picture in time, but I'll try and make it out there tomorrow.

The last part of the trip was a short hike through Bagnoregio. It ended with a downhill walk to a little parking lot serving Civita--cars can't enter the village--and a walk across the pedestrian footbridge from there to Civita itself, with a steep upwards climb at the end for good exercise!

A very satisfying day.
posted by Tom at 8:55 PM | link | (0) comments

Monday, April 15, 2002 14:40
Weather: Sunny, and warming up
Location: Car 3, Intercity 591, sitting in Florence station

Amazing, the power of the written word. Three hours ago I was leisurely finishing the paper over a cappucino, planning to spend the afternoon on some palaces, wandering up the Duomo's bell tower, etc., when I came across a little article in the Italy Daily insert to the IHT saying there would be a general strike, including all transit, tomorrow.

Three hours later, here I am on a train, set to leave Florence in five minutes for Orvieto, from where I will catch a bus to Bagnoregio, thence by a shuttle to Civita, mountain village, population 15. In the mean time I've spent an hour on the web (mostly involving frantic train schedule searches), had lunch, packed, rebooked by stay in Civita's B&B, checked out of the hotel (had to take a half-day penalty for late checkout), and otherwise bid a hurried farewell to this wonderful city.

Nothing like the unions to shake a man out of a lazy day. Or something.

I guess I earned it, in some way, 'cause I sure didn't do much yesterday afternoon, besides reading in a café, and after a nap back at the hotel had no time left for anything except a couple of slices of pizza (and glass of yummy wine (total cost: €3.80 -- now THIS is fast food I can get used to!)) on the way to the Teatro da Pergola.

Between buying my ticket (about 8:15) and entering the theatre (8:35) I walked back towards the river and got another gelato cup from the Gelaterea Rivoli, this time a 50/50 selection of coffee chocolate and mint chip. Absolutely delicioso.

The concert was, disappointingly, in the Teatro's back hall, not in the main theatre (which I think was being used for a stage production of "Una Tram che si chiama Desirido" or some such thing). The back hall has all the glamour and glitz of a high school gym, with a little stage and movie theatre seats on a flat floor. The featured artists were the Tokyo Quartet, and they played two works by Brahms and one new work by somebody I hadn't heard of (J. Tower) called "In Memory". They were joined for the second Brahms work by clarinetist Sabine Meyer. (Found a link to the concert programme if you're interested, at the bottom of this page.) String quartets aren't really my thing, but I guess they were pretty good. I had a friendly chat with the guy sitting next to me, a concert pianist named Fernando, on my way out.

C'est tout, other than to note (for those pursuing me though Italy) that although Albergo Montreal is nice, I found it a bit noisy and impersonal. You might be able to do better.

Ciao for niao...
posted by Tom at 3:05 PM | link | (0) comments

Ok, looks like I may be able to get to Civita this afternoon. Must go make a phone call to the hotel there. More later...
posted by Tom at 6:49 AM | link | (0) comments

Curses! The best laid plans... Apparently the Italian rail system is being shut down by a strike tomorrow. I'm working on options...
posted by Tom at 6:02 AM | link | (0) comments

Sunday, April 14, 2002 12:52
Weather: Partly cloudy... and partly rainy.
Location: Fiaschetteria restaurant

My bad. No journal entry for yesterday so I have some catching up to do.

I woke up bright and early yesterday and was actually the very first to arrive at the Uffizi museum. Since I hadn't yet eaten, I wandered around the block and stopped at a couple of cafés, where I picked up cappucinos and a croissant. I sat in the outdoor Loggia della Signoria, a covered open air statuary display to one side of the Piazza della Signoria, from where I could keep an eye on the line at the Uffizi, and once a few people had gathered I knew where to go and joined them.

As I was about number eight in line, I had no trouble getting into the museum, despite its strict limits on the number of guests in at any one time. On top of the €8 entry charge, I paid €2 for an illustrated map and another €4.50 for an audio guide, which wasn't as good as the one at the Thyssen-Bournemisza in Madrid but was still interesting. All told, it took me about 4 hours to work through the Uffizi's impressive collection, whose quality level is extraordinary, though its display area is not as massive as those of the Prado, the Met, or some of the other great museums of the world.

After lunch I picked up my tour at the Palazzo Pitti, a massive palace on the hill to the south of the city, across the river. I went around the royal apartments, which were piled high with paintings and objects d'art. In comparison to the Medici's Uffizi collection, the Pitti clearly represented the triumph of ridiculous wealth over good taste, particularly the ceilings, painted with frescoes of the Hapsburgs being crowed by angels and the trials of Hercules, for example. Not that the paintings were bad, mind--they surely represented the best money could buy at the time, which is saying a lot--but they went in for a lot of tasteless 'victory over the poor' and 'glory the rich' themes, along with the standard collection of religious art, though with rather scantier clothing than was, perhaps, justified.

While I finished my tour of the Pitti, a sharp rain shower started up. When it came time to decide what to do next, this made things difficult. I'd just decided to give up on the palace's gardens in favour of trying to make a 4pm concert at the Teatro la Pergola when the rain stopped. I changed course and went to the gardens after all. Of course, just after I'd fully committed to this strategy and it was too late to make it to the concert, the rain started up again.

After the gardens (magnificent, huge, wet) I headed back across the river and stopped for an Internet fix (and to get out of the rain). When I emerged the rain had stopped.

Next, I wanted to find the Teatro and see about a ticket for the concert the following (Sunday) night. It was right next to an English language bookstore, so I picked up Nick Hornby's latest on my way past.

Again, I hit a box office that wouldn't sell me a ticket to a show the next day. (One wonders why they bother to have staff...)

Time for dinner: I found my way to a great little restaurant that was recommended to me by an American couple in Vernazza, the Osteria la Congrega (via Panicale 43). It wasn't cheap, but the food was very good, and after all of my mind-expanding walking I had a good appetite. I rolled home well fed and lubricated.

This morning I picked up a cappucino and croissant at Gilli and went to the 10:30 service in the Duomo. I expected a gold-encrusted, over-the-top palace of a place, but it was surprisingly austere inside, with mainly plain white walls, though the interior of the cupola has a wonderful fresco. The service was in Italian and Latin, but as it followed the same structure as the ones at St. Mary Magdalene's in Toronto I felt right at home and had no trouble keeping up. There was a small crowd--the building was only half filled with pews--but it was very nice.

Just before lunch I walked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, up some steep stairs on the south side of the river, from where I had a great view of the city. Finally, back down to this little restaurant (Fiaschetteria) which has great food and very reasonable prices.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with my afternoon. I think maybe not too much more walking...
posted by Tom at 1:37 PM | link | (0) comments

Friday, April 12, 2002 23:20
Weather: Rainy morning, cloudy afternoon.
Location: Room 3, Auberge Montreal, Florence.

A very full day, but as it's already late and I have to get up very early I'm going to try and keep this short.

I headed out of Vernazza on the 9.12 train to La Spezia, in the company of a young American couple from Florida (bound for Rome) and an older Canadian couple from B.C. (heading west overland from La Spezia). About seven minutes after my arrival in La Spezia, I was on another train, an Intercity to Pisa Centrale and Rome, together with the Americans.

Also in our compartment was another American woman, on her way to meet a group of friends in Pisa, and a young nurse from Switzerland, Monika, on a day trip to Pisa. Since we were both on our own, Monika and I teamed up to explore the town.

It was pouring rain, and my €3 umbrella from Lisbon was falling apart. Every time I opened it another strut or support would break. This was an endless source of amusement for Monika, and possibly why she put up with me with such good humour.

The cathedral, with its famous leaning bell tower, was all the way at the other end of the downtown area. Fortunately Pisa is not all that big, so it only took us 15 minutes or so to walk there. After a brief exploration we found the ticket office and bought tickets to the tower (€15! Steep!!) and the cathedral (€2! Cheap!!). The tower is only accessible in scheduled groups, so we killed some time taking pictures.

There's not much to see on the tower climb--basically, a staircase runs up between the outer wall and an inner wall, leading to a covered balcony, with a smaller spiral stair to the roof. Obviously, the appeal is in taking pictures that highlight the lean of the building, which I duly did, though I imagine the whole experience would have been a lot more interesting before they closed the thing to partially level it. At least now the cables and weights are gone.

The cathedral had a wonderful interior, with massive paintings on most of the walls and a lot of gold paint.

We had lunch in an ugly, but tasty and cheap, restaurant on a side street near the university, then walked back to the train station where I said goodbye to Monika (who was headed back to La Spezia) and hopped on the train to Florence.

Things worked out very well in Florence--I like the city already. It didn't hurt that the rain had stopped. I made it out of the train station without being robbed even once, and soon found my hotel about 2 blocks away. I checked in and was given a nice single room with a sink, and shown the shared bathroom down the hall. I dumped the clothes pack and headed out.

First stop was the tourist office. A helpful lady gave me a "what's on" guide, which (to her confusion) listed a symphony concert for today that hadn't made it onto their daily summary sheet. I headed over to the Teatro Verdi to try and buy a ticket, passing by the incredibly huge Duomo (cathedral) en route. The ticket office was not, however, selling tickets to the concert (wrong company or something) but said I could come back at 7:30 to buy one.

To assuage hunger I walked over to the Piazza de la Republica (which has a huge victory arch) and had a pastry in the très luxe Gille café. Then, realizing that wasn't going to cut it as dinner, I followed it up with a slice of pizza and a glass of red wine at a small place down the street.

I wandered into the Piazza della Signoria, took a photo of the Palazzo Vecchio, and wandered past the Uffizi museum to the river. I had a great view of the Ponte Vecchio to the right, though I think the light will be better in the morning. I crossed it, walked back along the other shore, and came back over at the Ponte alle Grazie, from where I got a shot of the Vecchio.

After another brief stop, for gelato, it was finally time for the concert. The Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Florentino, one of Florence's two top-tier orchestras, had an inspired programme: Tchaikovski's Romeo & Juliet (overture & fantasia), Sibelius' Concerto in D minor for violin & orchestra, and Tchaikovski's Symphony #6 ("Pathétique"). It was an extraordinary concert, one of the best I've ever seen live. The violin soloist, Leonidas Kavakos, was stunning throughout the Sibelius and afterwards had to take 6 curtain calls and perform two solo encores. It's on again tomorrow--I may just go see it again.

Anyway, I must get to bed. The alarm's set for 6am--must get to the Uffizi before the line gets too long.
posted by Tom at 11:59 PM | link | (0) comments

Thursday, April 11, 2002 19:05
Weather: Rain.
Location: A trattoria just below the train station in Vernazza, whose name I forgot to write down.

A satisfyingly lazy day. I slept in quite late, just clearing out of my room as the cleaners got to it. The sky was dark with a persistant rain, so I resolved to find a newspaper and a good café and settle in.

At the local tobacco/magazine/postcard/newspaper/souvenir shop I picked up a copy of the Independent, then spent another hour and a half updating the web site, checking that my bank balance is still ok, and checking on the weather forecast. So far this trip I've been lucky, but maybe now it's time to pay the piper: looks like a front has settled in and all of Italy is due for rain for the next few days. Not too bad, though: I'll concentrate on indoor museums and sights in Florence, and hopefully the rain will clear by the time I get to Civita di Bagnoregio on Tuesday. I was able to book myself into the only B&B in that tiny village by email!

After stopping to pick up lunch--olive foccacia bread and a salami and cheese sandwich, with a glass of white wine to get me started--I walked up to the train station. After a half hour of wait, I caught a commuter train to La Spezia, a large town with a naval base, around the next turn in the coastline from the Cinque Terre.

I thought I might spend an hour seeing some of La Spezia and then head back to Riomaggiore, but the station was a bit farther from the port than I expected and I was quite content to wander for a while, especially after I found a long pedestrian street heading in my direction. On the left, the streets ran into the hillside and turned into wide staircases heading up, many with flower arrangements or statuary. At the second newsagent I passed I was able to find a copy of the Herald Tribune, so my reading material for the day was assured.

At the end of the pedestrian street was a large formal park alongside the harbour. I crossed the road and walked through the park in the rain. Other than some policemen buying coffees at a roadside stand, there seemed to be no one else around, and after a brief survey of rather boring flowerbeds and shrubbery, along with a proud but, let's face it, wet statue of Garibaldi on horseback, I headed back to the pedestrian street. From what I'd seen of the harbour it was large, mainly commercial, and sadly bereft of nice tourist-friendly warm cafés to sit in, so I stopped instead in a small café that I'd passed on the street and had a very milky capuccino while I read my paper.

I arrived back at the train station at exactly 15:08, i.e. when the 15:08 train to Cinque Terre was just gathering momentum. I had a pretty boring seventy minutes of wait for the next train, but soon thereafter was back in Vernazza.

After a nap, I set off for dinner. I stopped at the tobacconist's and bought a €5 phone card, since I'll probably have a few chances to use it while I'm here. I checked my email for all of 2 minutes (€0.30) and found a phone booth by the station. Five phone calls later (SO much easier with a phone card) I had a reservation for a hotel in Florence, guaranteed with my credit card so I can take my time at lunch in Pisa.

To celebrate this success, I've just enjoyed a great meal and am working on finishing off a half litre of the house red. I think there may be some tiramisu in my future.

[20 minutes later]

Best tiramisu of my life. Goodnight! (hic)

[side note]

Throughout my meal the restaurant has been playing a CD of orchestral versions of Pink Floyd songs, with a heavy focus on The Wall. Kinda surreal.
posted by Tom at 8:08 PM | link | (0) comments

Ok, I think I've licked the archive problem for now. Had to switch to a month per page instead of a week, so the archive pages are a lot longer than they were... My apologies. I guess the number of weeks was starting to break some limit. It's hard to believe, but I've been writing this blog for 16 months now!

By the way, in case you were wondering what the little "link" button below each post is for, it contains the deep link to that post within the archives. If you want to link to a specific post in this site, use the address within that link, which will take you to the post's permanent location. Linking to the home page won't work, because the posts there disappear as new ones are added.
posted by Tom at 5:34 AM | link | (0) comments

18:21
Location: Ananasso Bar, Vernazzo harbour square

A great day. My feet hurt, so it must have been a good hike! There were some pretty serious ups and downs, so I expect to hear from my legs tomorrow...

The Via dell' Amore started with a long cool well-lit tunnel which came out near the Manarola station. Here, I was intercepted by a woman who checked the ticket I had bought in Vernazza. I was gratified to find it had indeed been genuine, and was let past with no bother. The rest of the path, after climbing up some stairs, was a wide, level, paved lane, which passed along some truly steep cliffs. In places the path was cut deep into the cliff face, with windows cut out through the cliff walls to let in light. There was a fair amount of graffiti, some beautiful but most rather ugly.

The Via turned a corner and came to Riomaggiore's train station. It was getting on in the day and I still had a long walk from Monterosso to Vernazza to complete, so I went straight in, waited 10 minutes, and caught the train back to Monterosso, without actually seeing Riomaggiore at all. Hopefully I'll get a chance tomorrow.

Monterosso al Mare had a wide beach, with sand and even a couple of brave paddlers, and a road running parallel. On benches set on the sea side of the road, the old women of the village were seated in groups of two to four, chatting and soaking up the sunshine. Younger locals were also out in force, walking up and down the road, singly with bicycles, or as couples, hand in hand.

I made my way towards Vernazza, and the road led through a tunnel while the sidewalk headed up some stairs to a paved path around the next turn in the cliffs to the eastern cove of the village, where it met up with the road again. Here, fishing boats and paddle boats were lined up side by side. One fisherman was working on the engine of his boat, about 20 foot long with a little cabin, raised up on wooden supports so the propellers span futily in the air, with the little exhaust plume spraying backwards onto the sand.

I continued on and came to a bowls game in a small fenced-off club on the left. There were several spectators who had hopped up on the low wall next to the fence, and I hopped up beside them to watch. The players were really good, tossing and rolling their balls with amazing accuracy over a good 20 foot distance, with exquisitely applied spin to curve them in to the target at the end of their path. A couple of American girls stopped to watch and I explained what little I knew of the rules. They headed on towards Vernazza, and after a few more minutes and a couple of photos, I followed.

The path to Vernazza rose up steeply at the beginning, climbing high and more or less straight up the hillside. After some distance, it started curving around the hill, but kept climbing. The path was very well maintained, but for the most part it was quite narrow, though there were railings where the cliff edges were the most sheer. There were also some magnificent views, and I was very glad I had stopped to buy more film in Manarola. I soon passed the Americans again, and at one point stopped to take a picture of them on the path behind me.

On the final bend before the descent to Vernazza I came upon a French couple, and offered to take a photo of the two of them together. There was a dramatic backdrop, and they offered to take mine there as a reciprocal gesture, which I was happy to accept.

Finally I started the descent to Vernazza. There were a couple of picture postcard views--literally, as the postcards on sale in the village were clearly taken from the path. I stopped for a few shots. A German couple were bemoaning their lack of film, so I offered to email a photo to them, and took down the man's email address. We continued walking on together into the town. Then I said goodbye and went down to the harbour square for a much-needed beer.

Sadly, as the sun has started going down the clouds have rolled in, and the sky is now cool and gray. I can only hope that it will clear up again tomorrow, for another great day!
posted by Tom at 6:56 PM | link | (0) comments

Wednesday, April 10, 2002 14:52
Weather: Hazy but sunny, light clouds
Location: On a rock of the seawall of Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy

Once again I've beaten the odds and the weather forecasters and scored a beautiful day. I'm sitting on a large, roughly-hewn rock on the short seawall protecting Manarola's harbour. From here, I can see along the coastline to my right the hilltop village of Corniglia, the top houses of Vernazza, and in the far distance the resort town of Monterosso al Mare. A large tourist boat (which seems to be named UFO 4) is just passing, no doubt bound for Riomaggiore. There are a few others seated with me on the rocks: to my right, a pair of young women are starting to pack up and head off, while on my left a couple has settled in companionably for the afternoon. In the village behind, the ice cream shop is selling a lot of gelato, because the air is quite warm although the breeze off the sea is refreshingly cool.

I had a late morning, not getting up and out until after 9, and after a cappucino and a piece of bread studded with chocolate chips, I packed up for my hike. I was soon distracted from this by the Internet café in the village, which sucked me in for a couple of hours of "rest of the world" fix. It was after 12 when I set out again, so my first stop was in a little grocery store where I picked up bread, salami, cheese, olives, chocolate and water for a picnic lunch.

Finally I was off, finding the path to Corniglia just above the railway station. It climbed steeply up over worn rough stone steps, past an old tower on top of the hill. The view back into the village was wonderful, and I snapped a couple of photos.

The path continued to climb as it went forward. I passed several groups of people, walking in both directions, many of them German and French (as opposed to the mostly American crowd on the trains), though few of them apparently Italian. I shortly came across a man at a little table who sold me a pass to the trails for €3.

As I write this, UFO 4 has returned from Riomaggiore and has come in, nose first, to sit just off the pier to my left. They've dropped a gangway and are loading passengers.

The trail continued, climbing and dipping along the coast. Tiered vineyards and orchards clung precariously on either side. At length I turned a corner and could see Corniglia, with Manarola behind. I stopped and ate half of my picnic.

Continuing on, I passed through Corniglia, sitting sprawled out across the top of a low hill. I cut through the middle, and came out at the top of a zigzag staircase leading down to the railway station and the pathway to Manarola, which runs along the top of a fortress-like wall, with a stony beach below. No one was swimming, and the beach houses were closed for the off season.

At the end of the wall walkway, the path switchbacked up a bit and then continued around the cliff, cut into the edge with a wooden or steel balcony on the outside. There were a couple of ways down to the water's edge from here, and a pair of men were sitting on the rocks at the bottom of one, with the calm azure waters lapping the rocks beside them.

Around the next corner was Manarola, a small cluster of pastel houses huddling the cliff tops, with a miniscule harbour below. Summer sailboats and dinghys were drawn high up out of the water, but the warm weather had tourists and locals alike out for a seat in the sunshine. I picked up a chocolate and blackberry gelato cone, and headed down to find a place to sit and write this.

Onwards now, on the Via dell' Amore to Riomaggiore, from where I'll catch a train back to Monterosso. Then one last, tough hour and a half walk home to Vernazza, and dinner.
posted by Tom at 3:10 PM | link | (0) comments

Later the same day... 20:38
Location: Taverna del Capitano, Vernazza

A smooth day on the trains. The Cisapino from Geneva to Milan was half full for most of the trip, though it filled up nearer the end. I sat across a table from a young man travelling light from Lausanne, but I was in a quiet mood and we didn't speak.

The train wound around the north shore of Lac Leman, past Lausanne and Montreux. We passed close by the Chateau de Chillon, sitting squat and thick on the lakeshore. Some of my clearest memories from Grade 5 are of walking down from Glion to the chateau, where I thought up complicated Dungeons & Dragons adventures in its picture-perfect walls.

We proceeded, and in due course came out of a long tunnel into Italy. The train stopped to pick up the border guards for passport checks, and then we were off again.

Milan, a massive railway station, was busy and impersonal. The board showed my next train, and InterCity, as running 20 minutes late. After a washroom stop I wanted to call ahead to Cinque Terre, but was defeated by the phone system and gave up easily.

From Milan, I left in the long InterCity train, sitting in the very first compartment with the railway officials and an agent of the railway police (complete with sidearm). I figured that with them for company I had no need to worry about theft on the train, but at the very next stop the policeman and one agent got off, and the remaining agent started her round, leaving me alone in the car.

Outside, the flat land around Milan gradually got mountainous again as we approached the coast. There were frequent gorgeous old churches, castles and mansions on either side, so many that it was clear why some were not still greatly valued: one notable old building, with a wonderful romanesque portico, was missing some of the glass in its windows and seemed to be serving as a power transmission station.

We passed through Genoa, where the hills rose up on the left of the station, liberally covered with 19th C. and older buildings. A statue in an archway overlooked the tracks. I started getting worried that I might not be able to tell when I got to the right station, a real problem because the train was longer than many of the platforms, and the signs were often out of sight up front. So I picked up my gear and moved forward.

Up at the front of the 1st class carriages I ran into the railway agent who'd started in my car. She helpfully pulled out her schedule and confirmed that I'd be able to catch a local train to Vernazza from Sestri Levante. We tried some small talk, but it petered out until we worked out that we both spoke french. Then we were off, talking about Barcelona and Gaudí®  All too quickly we were at Sestri Levante and I said goodbye and hopped off.

While I waited for the next train I got a slice of pizza in the restaurant's cafe, which took the edge off my hunger, though it was neither large nor particularly fresh. Then I roamed aimlessly until the next train came to take me away.

This last trip was the home stretch. Between towns the train started spending more and more time passing through dark little tunnes, as the cliff faces got closer and closer to the sea. When we got to the first of the Cinque Terre villages, Monterosso al Mare, a horde of American tourists boarded the train.

So lesson 1 from today: when Rick Steves recommends a "Back Door" in Europe, it gets a whole lot of visitors.

Just a bit further on, the train stopped in the tunnel. This was actually the train station for Vernazza, whose outdoor platform is only about one car long. I got off, sidestepped a man asking if I was looking for a room, and headed downhill into the village.

Though everyone in Vernazza seemed to be a touris, the town nonetheless retains an enormous amount of charm. There are no fancy modern hotels. There is, in fact, only one street, which runs from the top of the town where the road to the outside world hits a barrier blocking cars from entry, and where vineyards stack high up the mountainside, down to the tiny harbour, whose natural shelter has been further extended with a short breakwater. Alleyways lead off sideways, and often steeply upwards. The old buildings now frequently house services for the visitors, including a self-service laundry (€4.75 each for washing and drying a load, which seems extortionate), an Internet caf鬠a wine merchant, a few bars, and several restaurants, plus innumerable pensiones and private rooms. Vernazza has clearly adjusted smoothly in its own way to the realities of a tourist economy!

Almost everyone speaks English and French (though my brief attempts to communicate in Italian raised a few smiles) and the prices are big city. My hotel room, with a shared clean bathroom next door, is €44 per night, but it´s on top of the seafront village, with a view of the harbour and the noise of the waves below, up some romantic alleys and 3 flights of spiral stairs, and I´m pretty happy with it.

So lesson 2 from the day: just because a lot of people have descended on Rick Steves´ recommendation doesn´t necessarily stop them from being lovely places to visit.

I´m here for three nights. One of the next two days, weather permitting, I´m going to hike from end to end of the Cinque Terre, about five hours. The other day will be for relaxation, and soaking in some of Italy´s charms before the trip to Florence on Friday.
posted by Tom at 9:04 PM | link | (0) comments

Friday, April 9, 2002 11:35
Location: The Italian alps, onboard the Geneva-Milan train
Weather: Cool, cloudy and damp

A quick passport check after coming through the tunnel, and I'm back in the Euro zone with Switzerland behind me.

I had a great weekend staying with my Uncle Peter and Aunt Helena in their wonderful apartment in Ferney-Voltaire, just across the French border from Geneva. They live in the Dependances du Chateau, built by Voltaire himself, when he relocated the town of Ferney to provide sufficient room for his castle and estate. The Dependance housed Voltaire's chaplain, and a large wine cellar, still littered with bottles, a pair of ancient casks, and a massive wine press. Upstairs, the old building has been retrofitted with elegant modern apartments, and Peter and Helena live in the southern one, up a wooden spiral staircase.

On Sunday morning we had a wonderful brunch, with fresh croissants from the bakery in town and delicious smoked salmon from the market. Then we headed over the border back into Switzerland, driving around Lac Leman to Aigle, near the eastern end. We hiked up into the mountains for a few hours. The dogs, Bagles and Bashti, strained frequently on their leashes as they came across interesting country smells, and on the way up we crossed the railway tracks of the little train that serves the villages of the mountain. It was hazy, but the mountains around were still visible looming huge through the trees. After a picnic lunch we headed back down, stopping for photos of the vineyards and perfect chateau in the valley, and for tisane and coffee in the teashop of the village.

Sunday night, Helena (who is a fantastic cook) prepared a special treat: duck a l'orange, with potatoes and beans, and a selection of cheeses for dessert, all with a couple of fine bottles from their extensive wine collection.

Monday proceeded in a similar vein, though as Peter and Helena both had work I amused myself for the day. In the evening two of their friends, John and Mary Ruth Fox, came for dinner (coq au vin). Peter knows John from working together at the UN, while Mary Ruth is a doctor. They were both extremely nice people, and we had a wonderful evening. I got an invitation to stop by and visit them in Washington, to be introduced to their daughters, so I guess I made a good impression!

This morning Peter dropped me off at the train station on his way to work, and I was off again. I'm aiming for the villages of Cinque Terre. We're just pulling into Stresa, set on a long lake with two or three wonderful islands, themselves built up with houses. Hey, I'm in Italy!!
posted by Tom at 11:55 AM | link | (0) comments

Just a quick note to say that I'm still alive, have had a great weekend relaxing with my uncle and aunt, but haven't yet had the time to write up a journal entry. I'm travelling to Italy today, so I'll write something on the train.

Ciao!
posted by Tom at 1:53 AM | link | (0) comments

Note from Kelly
Monday, April 8, 2002 14:50
Weather: Cool, clear and comfortable
Location: Internet shop in the student district of Santiago de Compostela

My heart goes out to Tom for the loss of his goretex jacket; I contrived to leave my Santiago pilgrimage history on the night train from Madrid and have been kicking myself for it ever since. Of course, I didn´t notice I´d forgotten it until I wanted to consult it for some information on the Codex Calixtinus, a mediaeval guidebook to the road to Compostela that includes all kinds of early songs. I studied some of those songs at my Vancouver Early Music course a couple of summers ago, and will be performing some of them on April 19, so I´ve been wandering about Santiago ever since we got there humming ´O adjutor omnium saeculorum´, ´Fulget dies´ and ´Vox nostra resonet´ under my breath.

Paul and I have had a wonderful day and a half in Compostela. We arrived before dawn and made our way into the old centre of town, following our noses rather than any more reliable source. Accordingly, we missed the cathedral altogether (which is astonishing...it´s a BIG building!) and had to backtrack from the monastery of St. Clara. It was really something to find our way down into the plaza, bordered by the Cathedral, a university building, the city hall and a 15th century hostel that has been converted into a fine hotel, just as the sun was rising. Nobody was to be seen, and there was a stillness about the place that would have been mystical if we hadn´t been sort of sleepy and in need of coffee.

We stayed the night in the very excellent hotel mentioned above, and it more than made up for two consecutive nights on the overnight trains! Antique furniture, abundant white towels, and a canopied bed with the scallop shell of St. James carved in the headboard. I´ve got pictures.

Galicia has its own dialect, to Paul´s chagrin, and so we´re not as fluent here (I use the royal ´we´!) as we are in Madrid. He´s going to wind up with some really messed up Spanish if he keeps on hopping districts like this. It has been useful, though, to travel with someone not entirely dependent on six words learned from Sesame Street, a phrase book, and sign language for communication!

Incidentally, I have been taking stairs (especially descending ones) very slowly and painfully for the better part of a day. The funicular operator´s prediction was all too true; I think some people who saw me in the cathedral at Santiago must have wondered if I was there hoping for a miracle cure for my crippled legs. I´d forgotten what real sore muscles could be like! Some stretching and a nice hot bath have helped; I´m much better today.

Thanks to Tom for allowing me to guest post. We had an email from Patrick, who arrived safely in Toronto although had to jog the length of two terminals in Heathrow to make his connection. Paul is staying through until Sunday, based in Madrid, and doesn´t know where else in Spain he may roam, but I fly out tomorrow morning, so this will be my last appearance. It´s been a good trip!


posted by Kelly at 9:05 AM | link | (0) comments

Saturday, April 6, 2002 20:22
Weather: cool & cloudy
Location: restaurant of the Warwick Hotel, Geneva, Switzerland

I got up early this morning and tromped up to the Sants station for my train. I was running a bit short of time, so I picked up a coffee and a salami sandwich and took them onboard. The car I was in was mostly full of older American couples travelling through Europe on Eurail passes, and they seemed quite concerned, appropriately as it turned out, as the train sat in the station a full half hour after the scheduled departure time before shuddering off.

The journey to Montpellier unfolded smoothly, but as the miles went by we did not at all catch up on the schedule. Indeed, we continued to fall behind, slowly, so that we arrive 40 minutes late. I had hopes that the speed change would help--once at the French border we switched engines and started going much faster--but it was already fully planned into the schedule. It turned out that the only train that was on time the whole day was the TGV that left Montpellier for Geneva 10 minutes before we arrived--the TGV I'd been aiming to get to.

By Montpellier my translation skills had been called upon by the Americans. When a French railway official came through the train to announce our late arrival and the probability that travellers to Lyon & Geneva would miss their connection, there were a lot of blank stares in the car and I stepped in to help. In Montpellier I had a full gaggle of followers as we progressed to the Salle d'Acceuil, where the SNCF staff were gamely (and with impressive calmness, politeness, and multilingual fluency) dealing with the horde of displaced travellers.

My flock and I were steered towards a 14:44 TGV to Lyon, and told that although seating would not be assured, our lack of reservations would not be an issue and we could grab any available unreserved seat. I passed all of this on, and as we had an hour to wait I left the others and went off to buy lunch and a newspaper.

The TGV duly arrived, and I got on. There were two halves, but as the train was not due to split until after Lyon it didn't really matter which half we boarded. I ended up on the Brussels half, while the rest of my former flock went for the front cars, bound for Lille. As it turned out, my half had just enough unreserved seating for me to score one for the full journey to Lyon, while my Americans ended up standing most of the way. However, in my half the air conditioning seemed to have failed, so it was quite warm and I shed my Goretex jacket.

En route to Lyon, I had two neighbours, for different stages of the trip. Until Nimes, there was a student next to me, who explained why all the trains were so full: spring break had just started. From Nimes to Lyon, my neighbour was a French author, on her way up to Belgium where she is involved in the creation of a unique work of art. A little village is recording the aural history of its current inhabitants, which will be inscribed onto durable materials (successive, and large, layers of glass, it seemed) and formed into a sculpture which would be placed in the village square. My neighbour's task is to take the raw, unedited transcripts and to edit them into a semi-coherent narrative. It's a wonderful idea, a sort of artistic time capsule for the future inhabitants of the area, to capture the spirit of the generations living out life there in this time of great change.

Back to the journey: in Lyon I got out and found the track for the train to Geneva. Another train, to Strasburg I think, was on the track, but I was assured the Geneva train would soon replace it. My American friends soon showed up, and a few minutes later the Strasburg train chugged off.

We had a major shock when, a few minutes later, the Geneva train showed up; it only had four cars! It pulled up to the front of the platform, leaving those of us at the back of the platform to scramble forward. Worse yet, the back two cars of the train were due to split off and not go to Geneva at all! So we were many too many for the available seats, and I ended up sitting on my pack for most of the way, and standing for the last half hour.

Despite this, I was in pretty good spirits. I had, after all, successfully made two connections without a prior reservation, and was set to arrive in Geneva several hours before my original "Plan B", though two hours after my original "Plan A", that uniquely punctual TGV from Montpellier. I was thinking warmly and with some pride about my skill in navigating this complex and somewhat frustrating system, when I realized I'd forgotten to pick up my jacket from the TGV to Lyon. It's now somewhere en route to Brussels, and I hope somebody gets good use from it as there's basically no way I'll ever see it again.

On arrival in Geneva, I unloaded and passed through customs. I'd avoided visiting the washroom on the train, not just because it was a washroom on a train but because on the Lyon to Geneva train there were so many people that two people were actually sitting in the washroom the whole trip. In Geneva I expected to find clean and well-serviced washrooms, and so I did, but they had been outsourced to the "McClean" company, and were charging [Euro] 0.80 for a urinal or [Euro] 1.50 for the use of a toilet! How Switzerland has fallen.

Amazingly, the only other option for the whole place seemed to be in a restaurant which had a little sign indicating that the washrooms were for customer use only. Here I drew the line, and used the damn things anyway.

In short order thereafter, I made my ongoing train booking for Tuesday, got some Swiss francs from a bank machine (damn their lack of Euros!) and reached my uncle on the phone. They're at a diplomatic function, but will be picking me up in a few minutes. I't just time to finish my coffee!

[Later note: though I'm infuriated by my stupidity in losing my jacket, I'm going to gamble that I won't need to buy another Goretex for this trip. I'm sure they'll be cheaper at home, and the rest of my trip will be through warm countries. I'll try and pick up a light, packable raincoat, and replace it when I get home.]
posted by Tom at 10:25 PM | link | (0) comments

Note from Kelly
Saturday, April 6, 2002 11:30AM
Weather: Rainyish...but not pouring.
Location: Internet café near Plaza S. Ana, Madrid

We bade farewell to Tom in Barcelona last night and met Patrick at the train station, where we compared footsore stories and had a beer before boarding the night train to Madrid. We did, indeed, have couchette tickets for this trip...but mine was booked for an all-caballeros (that´s men!) car. Who knew? It looked like being a problem for a short while, until the conductor ascertained that none of the men in the car (Paul and Patrick included) minded my occupying a berth there. Thank goodness for that! I had visions of another night of perpetual motion upright in one of those second class coaches.

I slept the sleep of the exhausted - exercise will do that to you - and woke with very sore leg musles, as the funicular operator who let us hike down that staircase yesterday in Montserrat had predicted. We arrived in Madrid, booked sleepers to Compostela, had breakfast and much coffee, and saw Patrick off at the Sol subway station. Now for a rainy day spent in Madrid´s art galleries, dinner, and another night on the train. Tomorrow we´ll be pilgrims.

Bon voyage, Tom and Patrick!
posted by Kelly at 4:03 AM | link | (0) comments

Friday, April 5, 2002 22:34
Weather: The sun´s gone down, but it was a beautiful day, cool and clear
Location: Internet café, on the edge of the university district of Barcelona

Well, it´s been a busy couple of days. I guess it´ll be best to pick it up where I last left off, at La Sagrada Familia. I see I didn´t actually spell out that it is a church under construction, but that was probably obvious.

When we left it, we first went for a late but necessary lunch. Afterwards, the priority was to confirm where we were going to sleep that night. This turned out to be pretty difficult. Hostal Goya was unable to confirm that we could stay there (and it looked doubtful), and the leads that they´d suggested were not working out either. Paul, who has the best Spanish of our group, went through my Lonely Planet and called every hostel and hotel on the list: not one of them had a room. Finally, we started working on the more expensive hotels in Kelly´s guide book. Here, we found one that had a single double room, so Paul and Kelly booked it. I was concerned about the prices, though, so Patrick and I decided we´d get our bags and go to the tourist office to get their help in finding somewhere. We agreed to meet Paul and Kelly there after they´d checked in.

The tourist office had an efficient system for finding the right hostals for their visitors, sorted by price. We got the last two rooms in a relatively cheap category, in a reasonable hotel that´s unfortunately in a rather seedy part of town. We met Paul and Kelly, set a time and place for dinner, and headed off to check in, our afternoon essentially gone.

The Hotel Coronado turned out to be much better than we had a right to hope, despite its uninspired location. I got a huge room, with three single beds and an attached full bathroom, for about €40 per night. Patrick´s was slightly smaller for his single night there, but was still quite reasonable. (He, along with Paul and Kelly, are heading back to Madrid today.)

Dinner was pizzas in a small restaurant tucked into the alley beside the Palau de la Músico Catalana. Then we went into this marvellous building. Again, we were struck by Barcelona´s striking architectural style, this time an art deco masterpiece with brightly coloured mosaics and stained glass windows everywhere. The hall itself had a fabulous stained glass chandalier, huge statues of pegasi and valkyries, and musicians whose bodies started as mosaics but ended as statuary sticking out of the walls with their instruments. The hall was relatively small, but had a wonderfully clear acoustic, so everything could be heard clearly, despite our poor sight lines to the stage.

The concert performance of Mozart´s opera was fine, but the libretto we were given was bilingual in Italian and Catalan, and none of us were good enough in either language to follow the plot. By the intermission, we were all tired and decided we´d seen and heard what needed to be seen and heard, and we headed out for a nightcap on the Rambla, the main largely pedestrian central street. As we arrived, one of the human statues lining the street (entertainers out to collect change from the crowds) suddenly came to life and roared at a passing group of girls, who screamed in surprise and pleasure, to everyone´s amusement. We sat in an outdoor cafe with small beers and watched the entertainers do their thing.

When we returned to the hotel, I said goodbye to Patrick. He´d decided to spend today (Friday) looking around more of Barcelona, which he seems to have frankly fallen in love with, while I was going to head out early to the Monestir de Montserrat with Paul and Kelly.

This morning I got up bright and early, had a shower, and went up to the main train station (Estació Sants), where I was to meet Paul and Kelly. Unfortunately, the trains to the Monestir turned out to be run by a separate regional train company from the Plaça d´Espanya station, not from Sants, so our first step was to walk the 15 minutes between the stations. At Plaça d´Espanya, we had no trouble finding the Monestir desk where we picked up a combined train and visit ticket, which included the cable car up the mountain to the monastery and unlimited use of the funiculars there.

We got off the little commuter train (three cars) at the Monastir´s station, next door to the cable car, and goggled at the mountain looming over us, the huge monastery a small but imposing block two thirds of the way up. The cable car whisked us up to the lower area of the monastery, and we walked up towards the main section. The monastery, now one of Spain´s most popular tourist sites, includes two hotels and several restaurants, and a new cog railway is being built to allow more visitors to leave their cars at the bottom and come up without them. While I applaud the ecological intent of this, I´m not sure the monastery really needs more visitors: it seemed to have quite enough school children in massive bused-in packs for any tourist site.

In any case, it was now late morning and we had things to see and walks to do. After a quick look around the main grounds and a peek into the basilica (which we couldn´t enter due to a service in progress) we hiked down to a little chapel perched on an elbow of the rock below the monastery. The path was wide and paved, but we found few other people, and it was pleasant to leave behind the construction site for a while. On the way back up, we passed several statues including one of Christ bearing the cross, donated by the Christian communities of the Bisbat of Barcelona. We had no idea what a Bisbat is, so we imagined a big, benevolent monster. A funicular took us up the last couple of hundred metres of the climb in quiet comfort.

We had an excellent lunch at the Hotel Abat Cisneros, pulling out the stops a bit as this was to be the last time I ate with my friends before they headed south and I head north. After yummy appetizers (olives, cheese, and little breaded cream cheese sticks) I had a delicious lamb dish with mixed mushrooms (amusingly translated as ¨scrambled mushrooms¨ on the menu). Dessert was creme brulé, apparently called ¨Crema Catalana¨ in the local tongue.

After lunch we had a quick visit to the Black Virgin, a black stone statue of the Virgin and Child which is one of the Monastir´s main attractions. It was getting to late afternoon, but the mountain called. We took the Funicular de Sant Joan up 250m from the monastery and set out on the Sant Jerom hike, listed as 1 hour. On the way up, we stopped in several places to admire the increasingly amazing views. The monastery is set on a mountain with a bewildering number of steep rounded peaks (hence the name Montserrat), and the walk gave us some marvellous views down into the valley, and then, over the lower hills on either side towards the Mediterannean, the Pyrenees, and finally, in all directions. The views were simply fantastic, and the path itself also had some wonderful highlights, including the little chapel of Sant Jerom, closed but visible through the barred windows, the precipitous drop over some of the cliff edges, and a few solidly constructed viewing platforms, including one right at the top. There, we ran into a group of rambling Germans, who seemed fearless about the heights, walking right up to the edges of the cliffs. One was kind enough to take a group shot of us.

Then we noticed the time. The sun was starting its descent, and we had only an hour and 40 minutes to descend to the monastery to catch the last cable car down into the valley. It had taken us that long to walk up to the top from the top of the funicular... We set off briskly. Going down was much faster than going up, but somehow we missed the (signposted) intersection where the path that would have taken us straight back down to the monastery, instead of back to the funicular, branched off. That meant we ended up back at the funicular at 6:05, with 35 minutes before the cable car... but since the last funicular stopped at 6:00 (it was still on its way down when we arrived) we thought we were out of options. The only clearly marked walk down to the monastery was listed as 50 minutes!

Then we noticed that the gate to the stairs down the side of the funicular building was not locked. We went down it, and peered around the corner. A metal catwalk led to a steep metal staircase attached to the side of the funicular track. This was clearly for emergency purposes, or maintenance, but since the funicular was no longer running for the day it might be ok. We started down, but soon came upon a ¨no passage¨ sign that confirmed we weren´t supposed to be here. We set back up. Near the top again, we ran into the funicular operator, who was just starting his walk down. Paul asked him if we could go down, and to our surprise, he said it was ok, since the funicular was indeed not running any more.

We had a hair-raising walk down the stairs, which started out metal but were uneven stone in the middle. The stairs were very steep, and we certainly didn´t want to slip and fall, so we kept hold of the guard rail on our right hand the whole way down. It was quite dirty and thoroughly blackened our hands. When we reached the bottom and looked up it seemed impossible that we had made it down, but we had, and with 10 minutes to spare, we stopped for a washroom break, picked up ice creams, and were at the cable car station in plenty of time.

At the bottom, we had some time before our train back to Barcelona, so we had a quick stop in the station´s ¨bar¨: actually, the back garden of an enterprising neighbour of the station who had set up tables, a covered area, and a bar counter to make some easy money off the trains running by the end of her garden.

In Barcelona, I said goodbye to Paul and Kelly. It´s been wonderful travelling with them again, but they´re off back to Madrid with Patrick on an overnight train tonight. Kelly goes back to Canada on Tuesday (and, being Kelly, straight into TWO choir rehearsals Tuesday night), and Paul´s spending the rest of the week in Spain before heading back to New York. For me, I´m off to Geneva tomorrow, but had some catching up on my emails to do. I headed downtown, grabbed a quick dinner, and dropped in to the nearest Internet café to get to work...

And now, I believe my legs have earned a quick trip to bed.
posted by Tom at 4:24 PM | link | (0) comments

Thursday, April 4, 2002 13:15 pm
Weather: Sunny again!
Location: On the steps of La Sagrada Familia

We spent yesterday afternoon visiting Barcelona in a low stress way, strolling around the Barri Gòtic in the rain, reading newspapers in a Spanish fast food restaurant, and rambling northwards in search of a bookshop (closed for a siesta) and some Gaudí architecture (on full display 24x7). We spent some time in the shop of la Pedrera, a wavy apartment building designed by Gaudí, Barcelon´s most famous architect. I encouraged Paul to buy an exceptionally cool Gaudí chair, but he declined.

After much wandering, we finally found an Internet café just a few blocks from the hostal. It boasted cool flatscreen monitors and inflated prices: €1.80 per hour.

In the evening we went for dinner at a very cool but somewhat expensive tapas restaurant called Ciudad Condal. Well-dressed business people at a nearby table were clearly out on an expense account, looking like strategy consultants on a project kickoff (i.e. mid 20´s to late 30´s, well dressed, all from different countries and getting to know each other). The food was delicious, served by a multilingual waiter with an excellent sense of humour.

We ended the day with a few bottles of wine and some excellent cheese and crackers in Paul & Kelly´s room, and turned in for a desparately needed full night´s sleep.

At eight this morning the rain had stopped, though it seemed like it might start again soon. We packed up, in case we have to move later in the day (the hostal being apparently fully booked for tonight). After breakfast, Kelly and I headed down to the Palau de la Músico Catalana and bought us all tickets to a concert production of Mozart´s Idomineo. They were obstructed view, but the full view seats started at €60... and really we´re mainly going just to see the hall.

We wandered over to La Sagrada Familia and met Paul and Patrick there. Then we spent two and a half wonderful hours touring this amazing construction site, surely one of the most magnificent buildings conceived in the 19th century (by Gaudí, natch) and still decades away from completion. The two side facades are finished, and the tree trunk columns of the nave stretch upwards towards the open sky and the construction platforms, from where some 10 more towers will be added to the 8 of the side facades. The whole thing was breathtaking in scale, ingenuity and beauty, while the climb up the towers of the nativity facade provided a view that was breathtaking simply for its height. Before long I´d exhausted my film.

Gaudí had a great line when asked when the cathedral would be finished: ¨My client is in no hurry.¨ Hopefull it will be done in my lifetime. I can´t wait to see it.
posted by Tom at 1:30 PM | link | (0) comments

It´s raining in Barcelona, but our spirits remain undampened. Not even the lack of sleep on the overnight train from Madrid has been able to keep us down (though a nap wouldn´t go amiss...). I think I´m going to like this city very, very much. Anyplace you feel positive about in the pouring rain on 3 hours´ sleep has something going for it!

I´m looking forward to investigating the architecture of Gaudi in the next two days. Stay tuned for postcards...

This terminal is about to boot me off. But I´ll be back!
posted by Kelly at 9:53 AM | link | (0) comments

Wednesday, April 3, 2002 11:40
Weather: Gloomy with persistant drizzle
Location: Hostal Goya, Barcelona, Spain

I had a nice afternoon yesterday, strolling around Madrid. I had an ice cream cone near the Palacio Real and sat under a tree in the Plaza de l´Oriente to read my newspaper. A busker set up in front of me and casually assaulted passersby by playing the Titanic theme on his violin. On the way home I spent another hour on the Internet, mainly reading up on the villages of Cinque Terre and copying out train schedules.

At seven, Kelly found me in the lobby of the hostal copying things between journals--I´ve filled my first journal and will be sending it home with Paul--and we picked up Justine and Alex and headed out to the bar where Patrick and Paul were camped out. After a drink we found yet another good tapas menu in another bar on Calle de la Victoria.

It was nice to get more of a chance to talk with Alex, who had been out of commission with a cold and cough for two days. He´s just completed his training as an architect, and we talked about the harm caused to society by the diminution of public space in favour of private yards, gardens and living rooms. Alex wants to change society through better architecture, certainly a worthy goal.

Justine has quickly become a good friend. Her travel plans around the world were recently altered to include meeting her new English boyfriend Simon in Canada: they both have ´round the world tickets, but in opposite directions! It looks like I might be in Scotland when she passes through, unfortunately, though Paul & Kelly offered a bed in their new house, should their renovations be complete in time. In the mean time, Alex and Justine will be passing along a similar itinerary to mine after spending a couple more weeks in Spain and Portugal, so I´ve promised to keep them posted on highlights of my trip.

After finishing dinner we headed back to the hostal together. Paul, Patrick and I went up to pick up the bags while Kelly, Alex and Justine went into La Suiza to buy a selection of lovely little pastries for our train trip. We said farewell to the Australians and set off for Chamartin station.

When we boarded the train, we had an unpleasant surprise: I had thought I had booked us literas (couchettes), but in fact they had all been sold out and the agent had sold us second class seats instead. Worse yet, the compartment we were in quickly filled to its capacity of eight people, with very little leg room and no way to stretch out. Though we all managed to doze, none of us slept well and by the time we arrived in Barcelona we were badly in need of coffees, showers, and naps (in that order).

We hopped on the Barcelona subway and headed for Plaça de Catalunya, at the north end of the main street, the Rambla. There we found one Café Zurich, which brought us closer to consciousness with coffee, juice, and cheese sandwiches served on lovely baguettes. Then we set off to find a hostal.

The first try was disappointing. We located the Hostal Fontanella easily enough (although it was up about four flights of stairs) but there was no answer to the doorbell, or, later, the telephone. Hostals Campi and Peninsular were full, and Lausanne and Rembrandt didn´t answer their phones. Finally, Hostal Goya said we could get two double rooms for one night only. We´re hoping to be able to extend that, as it turns out to be a nice place with hot showers and pleasant rooms.

While we waited for the rooms to be cleared, we dumped our packes and walked down through the drizzle to the Cathedral, a wonderful Gothic pile built on, and integrating, some Roman ruins. The organ was being tuned as we walked through, and the discordant whine prodded us through to the cloister, where it was replaced by the gentle honking of the cathedral´s geese, walking aimlessly around the middle and gawping at the tourists.
posted by Tom at 9:35 AM | link | (0) comments

Tuesday, April 2, 2002 14:47
Weather: Some high haze, but still sunny and warm, not too hot
Location: Interpublic Communication Services, Carrera de San Jeronimo, Madrid

Today we´ve got a long techno soundtrack in the ´net café, which is almost at capacity.

Yesterday went on according to plan. I walked down to Atocha with Paul and Patrick and we had no trouble booking literas (couchettes) from Madrid to Barcelona for Tuesday night (tonight). Paul and Patrick found that they could book return tickets for a mere €31, which seems really cheap for a 7-9 hour journey.

I went for a long leisurely stroll up through the Parque del Buen Retiro, taking a detour to see the crystal palace (unimpressive, unfortunately) and to go to a couple of newsstands for the Herald Tribune and the Independant. Then I made my way up to the Gran Cafe de Gijón, had a cappucino, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a big bowl of ice cream, while reading my papers and watching the world go by.

A couple of hours later Paul and Patrick met me there, enjoyed ice creams of their own, and we walked back to the hostal to meet Kelly. She hadn´t arrive yet, but was there shortly afterwards.

A bit after 9pm we were ready for dinner. We knocked on Alex and Justine´s door, but Alex was not feeling well so only Justine came out with us. With five people, we decided we had enough to really enjoy a tapas menu. Kelly was avoiding seafood (possible developing allergies) but the rest of us split calamares, sausages, patates bravas, sardines, and anchovies, while enjoying more of the tasty (and cheap!) beer. Afterwards we went down the street to our ¨regular¨, continued chatting, and had some more to drink. We ended up making plans to all go see the Museo Arqueológico together the next day.

I forgot to reset my alarm clock, though I did remember to turn it on, so Patrick and I woke up an hour later than planned, at 9am. We got up, had a shower, met up with Justine again and headed down for breakfast, where we found Paul and Kelly. (We´d been knocking on their door, but assumed they were sleeping in when they didn´t answer.) After breakfast we checked out of the hostal and headed off for the museum. Justine´s degree, in Biological Anthropology, included quite a bit of archeology so she was able to give Patrick and me very educated notes on the neolithic flints and other early tools. We went through about half of the museum´s collection, including a temporary exhibit of Roman construction techniques (interesting but difficult to translate).

After lunch we all split up to do separate projects for the afternoon, with a plan to meet for dinner at 7. I walked with Justine back towards the hostal (and in my case, the Internet café). She was going to check up on Alex and go off to the train station to book their tickets to Bilbao for tomorrow. Patrick was off to the Naval museum. Paul and Kelly were still discussing their plans for the afternoon when I left, Kelly planning to walk around and get a feel for the city, and then tour the Monastiero de las Descalzas Reales, while Paul was going to pick up his visit of the Thyssen-Bournemisza where he left off on Sunday. I´m not sure what I´m going to do for the afternoon: I bought a paper and may just end up sitting in a park somewhere for a while. It´s really nice out, so I may do some more wandering.
posted by Tom at 8:05 AM | link | (0) comments

Monday, April 1, 2002 13:47
Weather: Perfect!
Location: Interpublic Communication Services (web café), Carrera de San Jeronimo, Madrid

The sound track here is Madonna, currently playing ¨Like a Virgin¨. Travel´s a funny thing...

Yesterday we got up quite late. We´d planned on getting up at 9 after our late night the night before, but when I headed down for breakfast at 10 Paul had still not risen. I had my ¨usual¨ at La Suiza (cafe con leche, orange juice, dos ¨orreyjas¨ -- ear-shaped pastries, very tasty) and then went up to find Paul, on the point of setting out. We went out to San Jeronimo and into the web café for an hour. While I caught up on the blog Paul went for a coffee of his own.

Then we split up, arranging to meet later on. Paul headed off for a walking tour of Madrid, and I walked the short distance over to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. In comparison with the Prado, this museum was modern, extremely well-equipped for foreign tourists with a cheap but exceptionally well done audio tour, and had no lineups at all. In three floors the Thyssen-Bornemisza presents an extremely effective art history lesson, starting with the religious iconographs of the 14th century and working through all the major western art movements up to the 20th century. I spent a blissful afternoon working my way through it: a truly fabulous collection, and presented with sufficient context and explanation to make the important evolution of the art both accessible and entertaining. One of the best museums I´ve ever been to, in short, and a much better experience than the Prado.

In the mean time, Paul had been busy as well. He stopped at the cathedral for a quick Easter service (they were running once an hour) and also stopped in at the Teatro Real, the opera house, to get the details on the opera playing that evening. When we met up at the museum, we decided to wrap up our visit at 5pm to get to the opera for its 6pm start. On the way, we called in at La Suiza to pick up sandwiches (Paul hadn´t eaten all day, and I was starving) and at the hostal to leave a note for Patrick.

The Teatro Real was renovated recently and is gorgeous. The classically-designed hall, with three levels of balconies, is surrounded by elegant sitting rooms and (on our level, at least) a luxurious restaurant. The production was of two short operas, Babel 46 by Xavier Montsalvatge, and L´enfant et les sortilèges, by Maurice Ravel. I thought the first opera, a recent work set in a D.P. camp at the end of WWII, was merely ok, though not being able to understand the surtitles didn´t help my appreciation of the work. The french opera, though, was a fantastic production of a fantasy akin to Alice in Wonderland, with fabulous costumes for the animals and objects that come to life to torment a bad boy who´s been sent to his room until the happy reconciliation with his mother at the end.

After the opera we met Patrick back at the hostal, and headed out for dinner. He had an amusing ¨oh God I´m in Spain¨ moment as we wandered through the streets, when we came upon a poster for the bullfight next weekend. We had an excellent seafood paella in an outdoor restaurant, then barhopped through a couple of other places, winding up late in the evening.

This all rather ruined our tentative plans for an early start today. In fact, we didn´t get out of the hostal until after noon. Patrick in particular was suffering somewhat, and after a light breakfast decided that more sleep was absolutely required. He went back to bed. As Paul and I worked on our second coffees, we struck up a conversation with a couple of Australians who were sitting next to us in the café, a brother and sister, Alex and Justine, who are travelling around the world for a year following the completion of their undergraduate degrees. They´d just come from India and Egypt and were still settling into the luxury of being able to drink tap water again. We arranged to meet them for dinner in the evening, and at 1:30 set off to get a couple of errands done.

It´s a beautiful sunny day. Paul´s gone off to find a stationary store while I finish up the diary in the Internet café. Then we´re going to head down to the train station and book tomorrow´s trip to Barcelona, and Paul´s going to accompany Patrick on another walking tour of the city while I plan on having a relaxing afternoon in an outdoor café reading Stephen Fry.
posted by Tom at 7:06 AM | link | (0) comments