Among My Memorable Trips--the Mediterranean

Color, so different and striking. Burnt Sienna and ocher walls in Rome. Mediterranean blue everywhere we looked from the balcony of our ship. Blinding white villas of the Amalfi coast. White marble hands pulsing with life in Michaelangelo’s David. Reds and greens and golds in the market in Barcelona. This was a trip that was all highlights.

We chose the Mediterranean cruise for its dates, which fit all three schedules, rather than for its itinerary. My sister and I wanted to do something special with our mother in her 80th year as we had done with her in her 70th year. And so we ended up on a cruise ship that started and ended with Rome.

We rendezvoused in Atlanta, me from the West Coast, and Mom and Margaret from Dallas. Margaret had upgraded me to Business Class with them for a birthday present, so flying was relatively pleasant and comfortable. When we landed in Rome about 9 am we had each had several hours of sleep.

We took a taxi to our hotel, the Condoti 29, near the Spanish steps. The hotel proved to be on the third floor above a shoe shop, and we were grateful to the young man of all work who carried our 8 (yes, count em) bags up in a tiny elevator. We knew the hotel was a boutique hotel, that is, a former apartment that now had six rooms, a desk in a hallway for reception, and a breakfast room with three tiny tables. Our luggage filled the room, but the staff person seemed used to it, and offered us tea or water while we registered. We then left our baggage to walk to the Vatican, which we were assured was very close.

Our first lesson in Rome walking was that it is perfectly ok to walk in the middle of the narrow street, as long as one is sensitive to mopeds and motorbikes that appear out of nowhere, whose put puts patiently nudge the walker to the side, then zip around and disappear. Everyone rides, men in business suits, lovely young women in platforms and miniskirts.

We emerged from a warrant of streets to a bridge and a view of what surely are historic buildings. Consulting our green Michelin guide, we identified the Castel d’Angelo, the fortress of the popes, adjacent to the Vatican. St. Peter’s square was teeming with people. In our search for the Sistine Chapel we ended up in St. Peter’s itself, a huge and awesome building. We saw Michaelangelo’s Pieta, surrounded by tour groups, and entered a small side chapel devoted to prayer. To reach the Sistine Chapel we had to leave St. Peter’s square and walk another kilometer. The entrance is modern and we promptly bought audio guides for the Vatican Museum and the Chapel, wandered through rooms of prices tapestries and maps and papal souvenirs of centuries gone by.

The chapel surprised me in its dimness—no artificial light—and in the clarity of the pictures, which I had last seen, uncleaned, thirty years previous. We were awed. We should have been awed by the ease with which we entered the museum—on another day we saw a line stretching around most of that kilometer walk we had taken. We were fortunate in choosing to go during the Roman lunch hour.

Leaving the chapel we headed for the first restaurant, where we ate pizza and the first of many salads of tomato and mozzarella with basil. A taxi returned us to the hotel, where we rested before going to dinner at Otello, recommended by our guide Daniella. Our reservation was for 7:30, when it opened, and we thought we were frightfully early. Not so. It was full by 7:45. Great pasta and we all ate for $30.

The next morning our guide, obtained through the internet (Daniela Ford, daniford@ftbcc.it), was prompt in arriving at the hotel. We had expected to walk but also take taxis between areas but this proved to be impractical and almost unnecessary. Daniele is an art historian who tailors her tours to the interests of her clients. She shared her Rome with us, beginning with the Spanish Steps, the Trevi fountain, and moving through the historic Piazzas of the city. We learned to distinguish corbels, to appreciate the timeless piety of the Pantheon, to look for acanthus leaves as a decorative motif, and above all, to appreciate the colors of the buildings and the purity of the fountains. We saw the imprint of the historic papal families, their symbols, their names imprinted on the city’s face. We saw the layers of history under excavation, and the beauteous excesses of the city’s Baroque churches. We learned to drink the cold clear and timeless water of Rome’s fountains.

We lunched with Daniele in the old quarter, the ghetto, at La Carbonara, in the Piazza Campo de’ Fiori (the flower market) on Roman vegetables and a fried artichoke, upstairs in the restaurant where she was courted by her American foreign service husband-to-be.

Another highlight was visiting the Jesuit churches in search of the burial place of St. Francis Xavier, since Margaret and I had had gone to a school of that name. We found the grave of St. Ignatius Loyola, his friend and great rival, and a shrine to St. Francis.
Gellato revived us at Giolitti, #40 Via Uffici del Vicario, also www.giolitti.it. We told Daniele goodby, chuckling over how well our internet transaction had turned out. Our day with Daniele set the framework for our trip, in that she educated our eyes and taught us to look at the bones of each city that we visited. That day was definitely a highlight, and I would recommend her wholeheartedly.

Dinner that night was at Alfredo’s, the original restaurant of Fettuccini Alfredo. It looked original, since the autographed photos on the walls dated from 50 years ago and the strolling musicians appeared to be the originals too. We tried to order something else and the venerable waiter said “Look, everyone comes here for the fettuccini”. Good but heavy.

We had a morning before leaving for the ship and decided we had to see the Colosseum. We stood in line for twenty minutes in the heat and decided there was not much to see when we got in. But I do intend to take another look at the movie “Gladiator”.

Our transportation to the ship, arranged on the internet by Margaret, was a young man named Max (maxle@tin.it) who spoke excellent English. We engaged him for the return trip from the ship and he was prompt and professional. He also runs a guide service. His colleague from www.romelinousineservice.com did not speak English, but he just took us to the airport on our last day.

We were quite happy that we had engaged a car to go to the ship, as those who took the train, while saving a lot of money, also had to walk with their luggage from the train station to the ship.

The ship was lovely, all glass and glittering brass. Our stateroom was a surprise to Mom==Margaret had upgraded us from two rooms low in the ship to a larger room with balcony on an upper floor. We loved being together in one room and the balcony was large enough for three chairs and a table, ideal for watching arrivals and departures from port. We even had excess storage space for our belongings in the cabin. Thank you, Margaret!!

Dinner was again a surprise and fun--a table next to the Captains Table, which was unoccupied all but one evening-- with a British couple from South Devon, and a single man from St. Louis. We all tried hard the entire week to be entertaining and it worked.

The first port of call was Naples, and we had booked a tour down the Amalfi Coast, after considerable discussion of whether to Pompeii or not to Pompeii. The drive was very dramatic, with the road falling away to tiny beaches and symmetrical rows of beach umbrellas. The vegetation was similar to California, bouganvilla and Palm trees, grapes and olives. Each home had its own kitchen garden. Veseuvius has contributed richly to the soil and everything flourished. We stopped a couple of times, once in Sorrento at a shop selling inlaid wood, and another time at a lovely cliffside restaurant for lunch, before reaching Amalfi. It was easy to see that this part of the coast had been settled for thousands of years, and the influence of the Moors and others is evident in the architecture. This was the playground of Italy in the 1960’s, during “La Dolce Vita” and was world famous. Parts of the coast are still difficult to reach except by boat. We especially liked the shopping in Amalfi, picking up lemon olive oil, “Lachrima de Christo” (Tears of Christ) wine, linen shirts, and straw hats. The day was wonderful but 9 hours on a warm bus was too much. We resolved to rent taxis at our next ports of call, and cancelled the shore excursions.

The entrance to the Malta Harbor at Valetta was fortified centuries ago and our arrival through those forts was quite dramatic. We were among the first off the ship and over to the taxi stand to negotiate for a driver for a day. Our driver was a young Maltese who told us after some time that he used to be a race car driver and has over a hundred trophies. But now he has a son….and he was certainly careful with us. We told him that we were celebrating Mom’s eightieth year on this trip, and he immediately changed from a taciturn driver to a very nice young man, anxious for us to have a good time.

He took us to St. Paul’s Bay, where we lunched on fresh fish (and moi on fresh octopus, marinated with peppers and tomatoes) in view of the rock on which St. Paul was wrecked. Margaret was fascinated. I think she hears more about the Bible than I do. After lunch he took us to the grotto under a church where St. Paul stayed for three months. I was impressed by the Bernini statue of St. Paul and the photographs of several recent popes visiting the grotto. It must be real. A highlight of the day was the old medieval city of Mdina, set high on an outcropping in the middle of the island. Brightly painted doors and unusual brass door knockers punctuate the stone buildings.

Then we spend a day at sea, my favorite part of any cruise. I hated to go indoors at all that day, but did spend some time listening to the cruise director talk about future ports, and taking part in a wine tasting. Margaret had a massage. We all sat in the sun on deck.

Barcelona is a large port with refineries and much industrial shipping. Upon arrival we were immediately aware that we were in a large city when we saw the fleet of taxis pulled up. One driver approached us but his English was very basic and we were not sure we wanted to spend the day with us. We soon found that the other drivers were not interested in competing with him, so when he approached us a second time, we gave in gracefully. He turned out to be very kind and caring. (It always helped to have Mom along. No one wanted to offend or cheat the Mother.)

First he took us to the city arboretum and zoo and told us to walk around a small lake, which we did, coming upon a magnificent Gaudi fountain. Then he drove us to the unfinished church,La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s masterpiece. It soared in multiple towers crowned by colorful tiles, resembling to me, a sand castle. Our driver then toured us past the undulating balconies of a Gaudi apartment building, and several other highly decorative buildings. He then took us, naturally, to his favorite leather and jewelry shop, where, naturally, we shopped. At our request we were dropped at the head of the lovely tree-lined street called Las Ramblas, intending to walk the mile or so to the Monument to Christopher Columbus, where we would catch a shuttle back to the ship.

Las Ramblas is a street with a very large meridian. At its head is the bird market where songbirds of all kinds are sold. Then comes the flower market, and news vendors. Sidewalk cafes run the length of the street, their waiters darting through traffic to the kitchens and the restaurants proper. Students were everywhere, although the university was not close. Street entertainers and mummers entranced us, but not so much that we forgot to watch out for thieves. Our driver had warned us about pickpockets and gypsies. We found the old historic St. Joseph’s market, rich with fresh fish, candies, spices, vegetables, and olives and eggs. It was beautifully arranged and kept, perhaps a symbol of this artistic and tidy people. We bought wine, Spanish rioja wine, to take back to the ship. My backpack was heavy. Lunch under the trees at one of those cafes was a pleasant interlude. We returned to the ship by a taxi shared with several of the ship’s crew, dropped our packages, and returned to the pier to spend the last of our Spanish pesetas. We were glad that our next port would not call for an early excursion.


Chapter Two

Villefranche, located 3 miles from Nice, was the kind of harbor that called for yachts, not hulking cruise ships. We were the second ship in the small harbor and some maneuvering occurred before we anchored. It was once a fishing harbor, and we saw one rustic street on the waterfront, several white sand beaches, and those famous Riviera villas climbing the hillside. A few miles inland we could see rocky imposing mountains. I had heard about the medieval city of Eze, which was perched on top of one of those mountains, and I persuaded Mom and Margaret to make a stop there. I mentioned perfume, shopping, provencal fabrics. First, of course, we sent Mom to the purser’s desk to stand in line for tender tickets, as the ship sent people off the ship in small boats. We were on the first boat off the ship, and quickly hired a driver to take us to Monte Carlo, with a stop in Eze.

Eze was a delight, a complete city topped by a church, not modern except in the shops and galleries that were everywhere. Mom didn’t feel like climbing in the heat and stayed at the bottom. Margaret and I bought tablecloths, all kinds of linens in patterns one doesn’t see at home. I also bought herbs de provence and lavender from a spice merchant. We could have stayed several more hours in Eze but Monte Carlo called.

Our driver took us to the center of Monte Carlo, a beautiful, perfect city. We had paid dutiful attention to the dress code and felt we looked presentable in our nicer pant suits and closed-toe shoes. That and a few francs bought us admission to a lovely room overlooking the sea==full of slot machines. I won, Mom and Margaret lost. We passed by some very intent and depressed looking people doing other kinds of gambling. We saw gilded baroque dining rooms, empty, and explored an elaborate ladies’ room. We didn’t see James Bond.

For our next adventure, we crossed the street and entered the historic Hotel de Paris, where we inquired about lunch in the rooftop restaurant founded by Aristotle Onasis (“He owned all Monte Carlo, you know.”) Yes, they could seat us if we went straight up.

The room was lovely, semicircular, with stone balconies overlooking the casino, the yacht harbor, and the palace, not to mention the Med just beyond. Only one other couple was lunching. We ordered divine food and a grand marnier soufflé for dessert, but it was really the Matre D’ who entertained us. He took our photo, told us yes, Princess Grace dined there, and he opened the roof window to the sky so we could see how it would look at night under the stars. For the grand finale he unlocked a suite of rooms that Winston Churchill used to write and paint in, after his retirement.

Replete, we staggered to a bus stop (recommended by our friendly Matre D’) and took a bus to Nice. We really didn’t see much of the city as we were intent on shopping for more of those lovely provencal fabrics. I bought place mats and kitchen goods. By this time it was 5 pm. In great fatigue we hired a taxi to take us to one more shop and then to the ship. When he couldn’t find the shop from our map, he decided, perhaps, that we were more trouble than we were worth, and fired us as customers. I used my only French derogatory word “Idiot!”

His loss was our gain, as we got out of the taxi right by the medieval part of the city, and happily wandered through various streets for another hour or so. When we found another taxi rank, the drivers were in the local bar, having a snack and playing chess, on their dinner break. I was forced to use my pidgen French to inquire politely if I should call a taxi company. It worked, a driver appeared, and we had a lovely ride back to Villefranche, arriving just in time for another glorious dinner on the ship. Our departure that evening was spectacular, as we followed the Riviera coast for some time, and the lights were beautiful. Margaret alleges that they shot off fireworks in the harbor also. I must have been gambling, or perhaps that was the night Mom and I went to see the show featuring Carol King’s music.

Mother had mentioned after our marathon day on the Riviera that she might stay on the ship for our last day. What, we exclaimed, miss Florence!!! We vowed to take things easier, and we were not the first people off the ship in Livorno. There were at least 20 people ahead of us.

Livorno is also an industrial port, but again there was a line of minivans waiting to take people to Florence, and they had even elected a spokesperson and had a sign with a fixed price. It was still cheaper than the shore excursion from the ship. Florence was two hours away and we were quite pleased to be assigned to a Mercedes minivan #41, driven by Mario (ask for him). Mario has children in their twenties and a house on a local beach in Livorno. He liked our story about Mom’s eightieth. “Mama Mia” he exclaimed. He took us on the scenic route, that is, the medium highway rather than the toll road, to Pisa. We admired the tower, bought some iced tea, and departed for Florence. Mario drove us to the Piazza del Duomo and arranged to meet us three hours later. When we later saw where the tour buses parked, we were doubly grateful, as we would have had to walk about a mile to the Piazza.

We had read that Florence is overrun and overwhelmed by tourists, and that the lines to see things are horrendous. We had a great time, probably because we didn’t try to see everything in one day. We stayed in a five minute line to get into the Duomo, but the line moved all of the time. The piazza filled up with tourists, but it wasn’t the crowded pushy scene we had expected. Our real coup, however, was Margaret’s internet reservations at the Academia to see Michaelangelo’s David. She presented her printed receipt and the guard waved us past the line, to the ticket counter, where she gave her name and we received our tickets.

David is awesome, hands pulsing with life, marble of a whiteness and texture that has to be seen. We had seen the Pieta in Rome but had stayed at the back of a crowd. Here we circled the statue, marveling at his pensive expression, and at the vision of the artist. The famous paintings we also saw in the Accademia are unmemorable by comparison.

Our other sublime experience in Florence was buying leather coats, all three of us, something we had not planned to do at all. We were making our way to the Ponte Vecchio down side streets and detoured into various shoe and leather shops. The coats were beautiful, the very amiable shopkeeper the son of the factory owner, and you know the rest. I will remember my wonderful trip next fall when I put on the soft luxurious and inexpensive (well, sort of) jacket.

We photographed the Ponte Vecchio, shopped a bit, and visited the old market on the way back to the Piazza and Mario. He delivered us to the ship in time to pack our suitcases and prepare to leave for Rome. Mom and I packed and then vacated the cabin so that Margaret could also pack. She had more stuff.

Our departure the next morning was a reversal of the previous week. Max picked us up and took us to the Hotel Condoti, where we were greeted with genuine smiles of welcome. Our room this time had a tiny balcony fronting on a side street and a café. We shopped for shoes on the Via del Corso, the one the Romans raced horses down. We noted that the bowling shoe look is very big. No thanks. We strolled the Via del Babuino, the art gallery section, and read some more from the guidebook about the Piazza del Poupulo. We made a hot and sweaty pilgrimage our favorite place for gelato, and then napped in cool darkness in our room. We had done Rome.

We had dinner reservations at Restaurant 34 (it took its name from the street address) for the first sitting. We soon learned why they have sittings: they shoehorn everyone in, and no one can leave until the tables clear. The food, however, was worth it. I had tubes of calamari stuffed with bread crumbs and garlic, then grilled. Margaret had the seafood platter, piled with everything from lobster to mussels.

After dinner we revisited the Spanish Steps, just around the corner from the restaurant. During our week’s absence scaffolding had been erected around the Bernini fountain, perhaps to refurbish it. We stopped for a glass of wine, reluctant to leave, and contemplated the Steps. We had never climbed them. We had not done lots of things on the trip, choosing instead to enjoy the time and each other. It has taken me many years to stop collecting museums and monuments. On this trip we collected gentle laughter and wonderful memories. Somewhere still, in the back of my mind, I continue to think, who would have ever thought the three of us would make it to Rome!