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.