Italia!

We said good-bye to France again as we headed to Italy. On our way, we stopped at an interesting small church in St. Maximin where the body of Mary Magdalene is reputed to be buried. The body was lost for many centuries, then rediscovered in the 1200s. Today, the skull is on view in a golden case, looking surprisingly serene and calm in its gold housing.

We took the toll road to make some time, and got off as we entered Italy. The drive along the coast was breathtaking, with the road literally hanging above the Mediterranean. However, we drove through every single town along the way, which cut our average speed down to about 17 mph. Slowly, slowly we approached our hotel, which was a B&B in a renovated 17th century house. Our hostess was gracious and fed us homemade apple fritters for breakfast.

We drove on to Milano Maritimo, outside of Ravenna, which took the better part of a day. Our hotel was a couple of blocks from a lovely beach on the Adriatic, where we could walk each day. We treated ourselves to a real meal, including a delicious shrimp and scallop pasta, with a creamy tomato sauce and what I believe was scallop roe.

We then drove into Ravenna to see mosaics that were created in the 5th and 6th century. The interesting thing about these mosaics is that they present a very different picture of Jesus than the suffering and bleeding portrait that became the norm in the other Catholic churches we’ve visited. In the mosaics, Jesus is young and beardless, then good shepherd with his sheep, feeding the multitudes, and in other scenes reflective of his life and teachings. We did not see a direct depiction of the crucifixion anywhere. I left wondering what had changed over the centuries…

Driving down the Adriatic Coast, we got some feel for the summer life of this part of Italy -- resorts hugging tight to the shore, campgrounds with trailers, and plenty of places to eat. As we turned inland, Deane reminded me that Italy had a strong Communist party, as we drove down streets called Ernesto Che Guevara, Ho Chih Minh, and Karl Marx. On the way, we stopped in Loreto, where a structure reputed to be the home of Mary and the childhood house of Jesus, Mary and Joseph was brought stone by stone from Jerusalem. There was a small chapel here with frescoes of 8 angels hovering in the arched ceiling. The artist used a perspective that showed the bottom of the angels’ feet, so that they did appear to be hovering. No photos allowed, I'm sorry to say. From Loreto, we drove to Assisi.
Our hotel in Assisi was near a laundromat, so we spent part of the morning washing our clothes for the first time. Then on to one of the chapels restored by St. Francis, which is now housed inside an enormous basilica. The Porziuncola chapel is tiny and charming, and it seems a shame to see it now hidden from the sunlight and landscape, although I‘m sure this has preserved it. The basilica also houses the site of Francis’ death, and a thornless rose garden. From here, we went up to the old part of Assisi, where two more basilicas held the tomb of St. Francis and the body of St. Clare. It would be easy to call Assisi overly commercial, but the old city is still charming, and the churches were, perhaps, less overdone than many we’ve seen. There were no photos allowed inside. Inside and out, I saw more monks and nuns in sandals than I’ve ever seen at one time for sure. I wished we had more time here.

We stayed in Perugia after visiting Assisi, as the rooms in Assisi were too expensive because of the weekend, I imagine. Here is an example of what our travel is like. We have two crucial travel companions: our little netbook, which allows us to search out cheap hotels, and our GPS Dora (or Ditzy Dora, as Deane calls her), which we use to navigate (named after Saint Isadore, patron saint of computers and computer workers). My job is to watch Dora and the map, and see if what she suggests makes sense, as she has a penchant for “shortcuts” down roads not on the map to towns whose names I can’t find. Sometimes this is fun, sometimes not. This evening seemed to be going smoothly. But as we entered the old part of the city and approached the hotel, the road was closed and we had no idea how to find our way in. So Deane parked in the hairpin turn by the closed road, and I went in to find the hotel. After asking three people, a woman gave me directions I could understand, and I did find the hotel, down an alley that there was no way we could drive. The clerk, who luckily spoke English, gave me very complicated directions to the area where we could park on the street, which involved circling the city, navigating two tunnels, and driving down narrow cobblestoned streets very much like the one the hotel was on. We did find one empty parking space, grabbed it, then had to find our hotel again from a different direction, asking more people. “Congratulations! Welcome to Perugia.” said the desk clerk with a smile, as he had seen me trying not to panic as he came to the 17th step of instructions for driving to the parking area.

In the morning, we walked to a square in the city that had some of the oldest mercantile buildings around, I guess. We went into the cathedral, and tried to figure out what part of who was in the reliquary there. There was a stained glass window with the classic white bearded God, looking down on Jesus’ baptism. On the way back to the hotel, we saw all the special seasonal breads and pastries displayed, including one shaped like an eel (or as Deane would prefer, a dragon).

Our drive to Rome was lovely, through the mountains where I could imagine towns were fairly isolated in the past. Our hotel on the outskirts of Rome is an easy bus and metro ride into the center of the city. In retrospect, Palm Sunday may not have been the ideal day to visit the Vatican, but on the last Sunday of each month the Vatican Museum is free, so we went, as did many thousands of other people, who formed a line around the walls of Vatican City. We stood in line in the sun for 1½ hours, getting into the museum a little before noon. Unfortunately, it closed at 2PM, so we spent the first hour finding and visiting the Sistine Chapel, which was alive with Michelangelo’s large muscular figures, and the second hour finding the Raphael rooms and being escorted out of them one by one as the guards began sweeping people out of the museum. I hoped the pictures I was snapping would show me what was in them.

With the thousands of other people, we went to lunch, then to St. Peter’s Cathedral. The square was still set with chairs from the Palm Sunday service that morning. We were squashed like sardines waiting to put our bags through a checkpoint and go through a metal detector. Michelangelo’s Pieta was the best part of this massive church devoted to the Popes. The treasures in the Vatican are almost unimaginable -- there is priceless art everywhere, on every wall and ceiling. It seems an odd tribute to Jesus, who emphasized letting go of earthly wealth. Deane and I have talked a lot about this paradox.

Some day, I’d like to come to Italy with enough money to eat everything I want. However, even on a limited budget, we’ve had some excellent meals, including tripe, another first for me, prepared in the Umbrian style with long slow cooking in lemon juice, tomato, herbs and red pepper. There are not the bread bakeries that there are in France, so Deane’s in bread withdrawal, but we have had some lovely sandwiches, and certainly are not wasting away yet!

Addendum for Forrest: A puppet theater in Perugia, devoted (from what I could make out of the Italian) to nonviolence.

I Am Learning Some History: The Moors in Spain, and the Wealth of the Church

We began this week with one more day in Portugal, visiting Evora and staying in Elvas. Evora had one of the few churches with a statue of a pregnant Mary. The town also has the ruins of a Roman temple, reputed to be dedicated to Diana, but really built for one of the Caesars. We were sad to leave Portugal, where people were so nice, and where I was particularly affected by the human scale of the agriculture -- every house with a garden, animals grazing among the olive trees, everything on a small scale, food growing present everywhere.

We moved on to Cordoba, where a mosque built in the 10th century was later co-opted by the Catholic church after the Moors were driven out of Spain. The basic structure of the mosque, or Mezquita, still remains in the hundreds of pillars and double arches present throughout the structure. The sanctuary of the church is a small converted space in the middle of the Mezquita, looking somewhat crude and heavy-handed after the elegance of the arches. The Mihrab is still present, but it is the arches that are the most striking evocation of simplicity and purity.

From Cordoba, we went to Granada to visit the Alhambra. When we arrived at our hotel, we found out that there are a limited number of tickets sold each day so we might not be able to get in. We walked the long path up the hill to the site, and found out that, “No problema,” we could get tickets. Our visit began with the Nazrid Palaces, with the most beautiful sculpted plaster walls and intricate wood ceilings. One Arabic phrase repeated over and over, translated as “There is no victor but Allah.” There was water, the foundation of life, present all through the Alhambra in the form of pools, streams, and fountains. Farther up the hill was the summer palace with gardens still dormant, but the coolness of the running water throughout the levels of the site gave a hint of the refuge it would be from the summer’s heat.

We made a stop in Toledo, where more than ten years ago our children had staged a sit down strike, refusing to enter one more cathedral. We had more time to look around at the stunning wealth of art, gold, silver and historical treasures stored in this church. Really, it seemed more like a museum than a church, but it had many paintings by El Greco, Titian and others, and three of the most marvelous smiling Madonnas. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photographs, but we did take a few before we found out.

From Toledo, we went on to Monserrat Monastery, where a black Madonna dating back to the 12th century is housed. There are legends surrounding the founding of the monastery and the origin and discovery of the statue, but all I can say is that she has real presence. She’s housed in a glass case, but her hand, holding the globe of the universe, is exposed to touch or kiss. The church was obviously alive and well used by people of faith, and had melded centuries of art into a coherent whole, from the oldest statues to a very unusual 1990s painting of the Pieta.

We had a white knuckle ride over the Pyrenees to France, with hairpin turns every half kilometer or so. Deane kept his cool, and kept the car on the road, even with the distraction of the standard transmission and the stunning snow-covered high peaks around us. We drove and drove and finally arrived at Rennes-le-Chateau, where a local priest came into a mysterious fortune, causing a century of speculation about what he found in the old church there. All of Deane’s Da Vinci Code goosebumps were tingly as the little museum kept things suspenseful through innuendo and questions. The two souvenir shops, devoted to New Age paraphernalia and angels, testified to the compelling nature of the mystery. I was impressed by the devil at the entrance to the church -- what did this priest find his way into?

Today we arrived in Avignon, where the Popes resided for about sixty years. This site was…how can I say it?… kind of boring, stripped of nearly everything that had made it a grand place of ceremony and power. For me. Deane, on the other hand, ever ready to delve into history, found himself wondering about power and money and how that connects, if it does, with spirituality.

Food in the past week was sometimes challenging -- Spain is on an entirely different schedule of meals, with the dinner hour starting at 8 or 9 pm. We did have a couple of excellent sandwiches with the dry cured Spanish ham -- something like prosciutto, with a deeper, pungent and more aged flavor, but we never seemed to fit in with the meal schedule or find good markets. I was feeling a little protein and fresh produce deprived. But on our way to the Pyrenees, we happened on a small farmer’s market with a truck selling rotisserie chickens and potatoes. The chickens were rubbed on the inside with a mixture of herbs including rosemary and some hot pepper. They were basted with olive oil, and the potatoes cooked in the drippings. We ate the chicken and potatoes as a picnic on the hood of the car with the Pyrenees in the background, and it was by far the best meal of the week. We also picked up some local olives, which are the best I’ve ever tasted -- green, but smooth and mellow and extremely flavorful. So the food saga ended very happily this week!

Best for last -- best loaf of bread we've had, perfect crust and sesame seeds -- It didn't even make it to the car before Deane ate half the "tail" of this fish.

Pilgrimage and Prehistory

In the last week, we’ve either been at a major Catholic pilgrimage site or at a prehistoric one. We went into the town of Les Eyzies de Tayac, where a cave nearby , Font-de-Gaume, still allowed you to visit the original cave paintings. So we made our reservation for the afternoon, and waited in town while everything closed for two hours at midday. We were in the heart of foie gras country, and had seen the pastures filled with contented looking ducks, so I tried a foie gras sandwich for lunch for an unbelievably cheap price, and learned that, yes, it really is that good. I will probably never have it again, as it is generally outrageously expensive and ethically questionable, but was grateful for this one time -- just a perfect slice of foie gras on a perfect baguette. The sandwich wasn't beautiful, but our salads were.

On our tour of the cave, the guide brought us into the cave, and in the semidarkness used her laser pointer to trace the outlines of bison and reindeer, showing us how the figures came to life when lit by fire as opposed to the static electric lights. It was unbelievably moving to see the art work face to face, imagining the thousands of years between now and then, and the leap forward that the graceful and lifelike images represented. We were not allowed to take pictures (and the paintings were faint, so I‘m not sure pictures would have captured them), but here is an image I found online.

From the cave, we drove on to Lourdes as it became dark and snowy. Lourdes is in the Pyrenees, and it was bitter cold. We arrived late, and the GPS could not locate us in the narrow streets. Frustrated and tired, we took one last turn, and seemingly miraculously, there was our hotel right in front of us. The cathedral at Lourdes was three tiered, each expansion more modern and elaborate than the next. There were dozens of taps for holy water, which people took by the gallon, and more Catholic memorabilia than I would have thought possible in the shops nearby.

From Lourdes, we drove over the Pyrenees to the northern coast of Spain, in the snow again. We arrived at Santillana del Mar and met our hotel owner, a loquacious and charming lawyer who had left a high-powered career to raise horses and run a hotel in this little town. He told us hair-raising stories about the financial and political power of the Catholic church, and the way the church and the army are intertwined in Spain. He sent us to a restaurant near the ocean where we had fabulous grilled seafood, all the while listening to a table full of older drunken Spanish men sing sad love songs accompanied by guitar.

The next morning, we visited the Altamira cave sites, another site with cave paintings. The cave is closed to the public now, so we viewed a recreation of the paintings, carefully done, but not like seeing the real thing.

From the caves, we drove to Santiago de Campostela, passing signs pointing the way for pilgrims as we went. We visited the cathedral and the old city for a day. The cathedral was largely simple and unadorned, with the exception of a baroque explosion of gold leaf and giant angels at the altar, and a huge pipe organ with angels that hung both horizontally and vertically above the pews. The body of St. James is housed here in a silver reliquary, which is on view, but more popular is a more than life-sized statue of James at the head of the altar. It is the custom to embrace and kiss the statue, which we got in line and did (I kissed, Deane patted).

From Santiago, it was on to Portugal, and a stop at Bom Jesus, a church with 654 steps to climb. The stations of the cross were at each stop along the way, in life size dioramas with full gory detail. As you approached the church, there were fountains representing each of the five senses, with water pouring from eyes, ears, mouths, etc. There was a beautiful view of Braga, Portugal from the top, all white stucco with tile roofs.

Then on to Fatima, where we spent today, Sunday. There were masses going on in multiple locations, seemingly continuously, and the pews were packed. The cathedral has the remains of the three children who saw apparitions of Mary; two died in childhood, but one lived a very long life as a nun. The place was packed with people, including those traveling a long route along the plaza on their knees, accompanied by a child or adult holding their hand. In Lourdes and in Fatima, we were struck by the contrast between the innocence and simplicity of the children and the ostentation of the structures that now honor their visions.

Everything is new

We’ve been on our way for less than a week but have seen so much already that I hardly know how to begin. We arrived in Paris very early in the morning on March 2, picked up our rental car, and began a wild ride through the Paris traffic and labyrinth of highways to find our hotel. Thank heavens for the GPS, or I have no idea how we would have gotten there, as is the case for almost everywhere we’ve gone. Deane is a brave and intrepid driver, and made me promise not to tell about any of the life-threatening or illegal things he’s done.

We had one day in Paris, half of which we spent trying to figure out the bus, train and subway systems, and half of which we spent in Pere Lachaise cemetery, where many famous people (and many, many more not so famous) are buried. Jim Morrison’s grave is the most visited site, and is guarded by bicycle policemen. Sarah Bernhardt’s grave, on the other hand, was hidden and largely ignored. My lesson from the cemetery: You may have enough money to build yourself a big tomb, but there’s no guarantee that in 200 years there’ll be anyone left who will take care of it.

From Paris, we went to Chartres. The cathedral grew up around a piece of silk cloth, reputed to be Mary’s veil worn during the birth of Jesus. Part of the cloth still survives, has been dated to the 1st century, and is housed in a large reliquary flanked by golden angels. The stained glass in the cathedral was amazing, with brilliant reds and blues. One section of the stone arched ceiling had been cleaned as the first part of a five year renovation, and it was white and light and glorious, bathed in light from the stained glass, unlike most of the cathedral walls and pillars, which were dark and gray. We heard a lecture by Malcolm Miller, who said that Gothic architecture was meant to be light-filled, and I wondered how much of the Gothic stereotype I held was due to the grimy condition of many Gothic buildings…

Then on to Mont St. Michel, a former abbey turned barracks turned prison turned historical site on an island just off the coast of Northern France. The building was impressive from a distance and up close, but was largely emptied of the signs of the religious life it once held. What was left was a testament to the ingenuity and craftsmanship of the builders, who, working in stone that had to be carried across the causeway during low tide, braving quicksand and drowning, crafted the arched ceiling, stairways, grand halls and chapels.

Today we visited prehistoric sites in Carnac and Locmariaquer. Carnac has rows and rows of huge stones set in straight parallel lines, covering many kilometers, to what end no one knows for certain. Locmariaquer had a reconstructed tumulus and cairn, both burial sites, along with the largest menhir, now toppled and broken into four pieces, in the Western world. The highlight of the day was being able to enter one of the burial chambers and see the prehistoric carvings on the stones forming the ceiling and walls.

We’ve eaten well, thanks to the boulangeries in every town. Even the simplest sandwich, which is our main meal, is beautifully made from the finest ingredients. The boulangeries tend to have a “formule:” one sandwich of your choice, one drink and one dessert -- from a choice of a dozen or more exquisite little tarts, cakes and other pastries. With an extra baguette or croissant, it’s easily enough for two and affordable. Deane asked how many pictures of baguette sandwiches I could take. When they look like these, one a day!