Down the Decades

Today marks exactly 10 years since we left California for our Parisian adventure.  We had planned for and looked forward to that departure for many years and when we finally left the ground at SFO we looked at each other and laughed with the thrill of it all.  I loved knowing I lived (at least part time) in Paris, loved the quotidian life, loved the streets, loved feeling the city was mine in a way that a short stay can’t make me feel.

Now it’s just under 5 years since that adventure came to an end, when we realized that we had done what we had wanted to do, lived in Paris, and it was enough.  We missed our California home, our friends, our family, and not least, the weather.  I think it’s possible that if Paris had California’s climate we might very well still be there.

What’s interesting to me is the change of attitude I’ve had with regard to Paris.  Many years ago I asked a Berkeley friend who had lived some years in Paris why she didn’t visit there more often.  Her reply was that it just wasn’t the same being a visitor after having lived there.  At the time this made no sense; now it’s just how I feel.  Lovely as it is to see friends, visit old haunts, etc.  it’s not the same.

We’ve been back a couple of times and I don’t really see myself doing it again soon.  Short visits don’t make me feel at home but on the other hand I no longer want to spend a longer time there.  It’s taken me a long time to understand this, but I think Paris and I are no longer in a relationship.  We’ve both changed.

There have been several stretches of time in the last 5 years that I swore I would no longer travel, it  was too difficult, it took too long, it had become less and less pleasant.  That feeling seems to last about 18 months before the bug bites again and we start saying “well, maybe...?”  So although we aren’t going anywhere this year we’ve just reserved our flights to Italy for 2020, our big anniversary year.  Our love affair with Paris seems to have ended, but there’s a strong flirtation going on with Venice.

Sun? Sun!

I have just been hit by the first ray of sun I've seen in a week.  Sitting on the couch in the apartment I suddenly realized that the light coming in the window was the sun.  Getting up off the couch was the next step.  Despite the grim weather we've been averaging about four miles a day and this afternoon I finally felt the need to put my feet up for a while.

But we can't let this pass, who knows when the sun might be out again, so we dashed out for a walk as did everyone else in the area.  Suddenly streets that had been echoingly empty were filled with strollers and finding an outdoor café table became a challenge.  We finally played tourist and snagged a table at Deux Magots to watch people pass by.  For the first time in a week I wore my sandals, wore no jacket and left the umbrella at home.  Summer might really show her face.

Earlier in the day we had checked out the Seine to see what the water level was.  Late Friday was when it was expected to peak and then begin to recede.  It did in fact look about 8-12 inches lower, judging by the water marks on the tree trunks that had been submerged.  The rising river had become THE tourist attraction of Paris, particularly as nearly all the museums near the river had closed to move threatened art from lower storage levels to safety on a higher floor.  The Louvre and Orsay museums continue to be closed until Tuesday, but the Grand Palais had reopened after only a day so we walked over there to see "Carambolages", a cleverly curated exhibition of many different works in many media, all hung to lead thematically from one to the next, like a row of dominoes. Very interesting and well worth the visit, as the Michelin guide would say.

Dinner at the apartment for only the second time in a week.  All this eating is getting old.  In Sicily I had been suffering from a bit of indigestion and had had very little appetite, which helped my waistline.  Here I'm eating as usual and the four or five miles of walking per day is only keeping it from growing back.

Postscript: woke up this morning to bright sun!  Fingers crossed for the rest of the week, despite the forecast.

Washed Away

So we headed for Paris, arriving on the rainiest day I've seen since Venice.  What is it with the weather in Europe lately?  In California climate change gives us drought.  In Europe it gives us floods. Yes, really.  Floods.  The Seine in Paris has risen to the Zouave's feet.  You probably don't have any idea what I'm talking about, but there is a statue of a colonial soldier called a Zouave on one of the bridges crossing the Seine in the center of Paris.  Traditionally the height of the river is measured by how high on the Zouave the water reaches.  His feet?  Pretty high.

We crossed the river today and did a double take.  All the riverside roads, i.e. the lower banks, where traffic runs along the Right Bank and where the Left Bank road has been replaced with pedestrian walks and cafés, and where in July the city installs a little "beach" called Paris Plage for Parisians who can't leave the city on vacation, all of this is underwater.  The barges and sightseeing boats are floating way too high and the arches under the bridges are not high enough above the water level to permit boat transit.  The underground Memorial to the Deportees at the point of the Ile de la Cité behind Notre Dame is closed because the crypt is inundated.  This is serious.

Not far from Paris, we see on the news, traffic on a major national highway is stalled because of flooding and drivers have been taken to shelters for the night.  Some towns are evacuating hospitals and prisons, not to mention private homes.  Not the kind of thing you think about when going on vacation.  

With luck, the next few days will be relatively dry. It didn't rain today.  Yesterday we went out to find Gene a waterproof jacket, something he got away without in the rain in Venice but it's worse here.  And today I bought a pair of sturdier shoes and an raincoat.  Those sandals I brought won't cut it.

We've set up a number of dates with old friends, dinners, drinks, movies.  We wander a bit saying things like "oh look, didn't that shop use to be a bar?"  We can't seem to work up much enthusiasm for going to the hot new restaurants even if I knew what they were.  It's quite nice sitting in a familiar café watching the world go by.  

Speaking of the world, much less of it seems to be here.  I've heard few American voices and the streets are much less crowded than a usual early June.  There's a sort of blanket of quiet over the city, which may of course just be the cloud cover.  People have said that business has been picking up after all the terrorist attacks but that the weather is keeping tourists away.  I don't think it's just tourists.  My very uninformed impression is that Parisians are staying home as well.

Getting Out of Dodge

OK, we are sitting in the Palermo airport waiting for our flight to Paris and I have to tell you our brief feeling of content in Piazza Armerina evaporated pretty quickly.  In Agrigento we checked into the Villa Athena, the only hotel actually on the grounds of the Archeological Park of the Valley of the Temples.  The Villa has rooms with views of the Temple of Concordia and we snagged one when we made the reservation.  Well, sort of.  The view was from the little terrace attached to the room but it was nice nonetheless, particularly since the line of temples on the crest of the hill was visible from the dining terrace and the swimming pool as well. You will get that it was a nice hotel.

We arrived, had lunch and in the late afternoon headed for the temples.  Two of these are impressively virtually intact, another couple are just lines of standing columns.  Coming close to them is an extraordinary feeling, trying to imagine a life that included them even more so. 

The greatest of them is a collection of blocks that represent the Temple of Jupiter which stood about 90 feet tall, and the length and breadth of a football field.  The upper part of the exterior walls were held up by male figures called Telemons, at least 25 feet high.  One remains in the local museum and dwarfs anyone standing nearby.  A walk along the length of the valley takes about three hours.  It's hot and tiring but well worth it.

Getting back to the hotel I stepped out on our terrace and heard American voices from the tables below.  I moved closer, past the blocking plantings, and saw my doctor from Berkeley not ten feet away.  Smaller and smaller world.  I decided not to ask her about my troublesome indigestion.

There must be tourists who do their in-depth research and spend days seeing the wonders of the Valley of the Temples.  We are not among them.  We thought of going back the next morning but didn't.  Instead we drove out to see another less historic sight that several local people had recommended us not to miss, the Scala dei Turchi, Turkish Staircase.  We managed to get lost on the way and found ourselves in Porto Empedocle, the hometown of Andrea Camilleri, author of the much loved Inspector Montalbano series of mystery novels.  Italian TV ran this show for 12 seasons, the most popular in TV history.  Although Camilleri changes the names of the towns, Porto Empedocle is meant to be Montalbano's Vigatà and bar owners all over town use Vigatà or Montalbano in their business names.  It was this show playing for a time on US television that seduced us into coming to Sicily.  Great art direction, not so much a reflection of reality we have learned.

When we finally got to the Scala dei Turchi we were underwhelmed once again. A white chalk cliff steps down to the sea.  That's it.  Maybe we had just reached the point where nothing would please us, like cranky children.  

Yesterday morning we hit the road for Palermo where we would spend one night before this morning's flight.  We had originally planned to spend a week before I upended the schedule to decamp for Paris. We can only say thank god.  Palermo has some wonderful old churches, mostly rundown and crumbling away.  Other than that, niente.  True, we missed seeing some of the most important sights because the Palazzo Normanni closed at noon and we couldn't stop at Monreale to see the renowned mosaics on our way into town as we had been warned by local people not, on any account, to leave our baggage in the car while visiting the Duomo. There are many people who love Palermo, who rave about its markets, its street life.  It was a Sunday we spent there so the shops were closed and the traffic limited by a military parade.  We had some forgettable food at a table in the street at what looked like a popular place in the Vucceria market, and later had a good meal at a trattoria.

On the way to dinner we thought we would find a café to have a drink and watch the passeggiata, hundreds of people of all ages watching each other walk up and down the main streets off the Piazza Politeana, but apparently Palermitano culture doesn't permit sitting and watching.  No cafés along the streets.  At all.  It appears you have to keep moving like a school of sharks until you go home for dinner.

I'm sounding pretty grumpy,  I know, but in fact I'm grateful we recognized our lack of connection with Sicily early enough to do something about it and I'm quite happy to be waiting for the flight to rainy Paris.  You can't have everything.

Mi dispiace, Sicily

I owe Sicily an apology.  We left Noto yesterday feeling we had made a mistake coming to Sicily.  We hadn't much cared for Siracusa, we loved our hotel in Noto but didn't think much of the town, we visited Modica and based on that decided not to visit Ragusa.  We found the landscape dull.  We were on a "no" roll. We were wrong, at least in part.

Yesterday morning we left for an overnight visit to Piazza Armerina, a middling size town that is the closest point to the Villa Romana del Casale, an enormous Roman villa that had been covered by a landslide and forgotten for 700 years, leaving the spectacular and extensive mosaics protected and for the most part intact.  We drove to Piazza Armerina through the countryside on the Catania-Palermo autostrada, a countryside completely different than that of the southeastern part of Sicily where we had been so far.  Here we had green fields, enormous rolls of hay, hills that felt more like Tuscany.  It was lovely.  When we reached Piazza Armerina we checked into a B&B in the modern part of town, above a café, someplace we would typically not consider, but it was great.  Modern, clean, well decorated, great shower, nice owner. Unlike the fancier places we had been staying I was forced to use my Italian.  No one we met in Piazza Armerina spoke English.  

The mosaics were extraordinary.  It was blazing hot but with enough of a wind to make it not too uncomfortable and we kept on and on, through thousands of square feet of room floors, all covered in exquisite mosaic scenes. We've seen a lot of ancient remains over the years but these were special.

The guide at the Villa suggested a bar for us to have a light dinner and when we mentioned the name to the girl behind the bar at "our" café she told us it was her uncle's place.  Once we got there I told the barman we had been sent by his niece.  This was the beginning of a conversation with him, his wife, his son (who made the delicious arancini the bar was known for), various neighbors who dropped in to get their own arancini, the niece from the café, the niece's old high school teacher, who rushed back home to bring us some fresh cherries after I said the ones we had bought were no good, and a nurse from Lago Maggiore who was back home visiting the family and tossing back a few glasses of vino bianco.  We discussed the lack of outdoor tables in the old part of Piazza Armerina, which led to a discussion about the venality of local politicians who were concerned only with lining their own pockets rather than improving local business conditions, which led to the differences between countries and their politicians, which led to travel and to work and to retirement and...

After a round of cheek kisses we found our way home and fell happily asleep.  A good day in Sicily.

Sicily

I have grown to detest travel, by which I mean the transfer from one place to another. The shortest trip by air takes at least 2 hours longer than the actual flight and often much more. And don't get me started on connections. 

All of this is by way of saying getting from Venice to Siracusa Sicily was a long slog. A water taxi to the airport, a delayed flight to Rome, a delayed flight to Catania, a 30 minute taxi ride to Siracusa and a jerk of a hotel manager on arrival. Basta!

The desk clerk though is a sweetie and a drink and a bite to eat helped immensely.  The first morning we wandered out into Ortygia, the oldest and most charming part of the city, early enough to enjoy it before the tour groups arrived.

Later we are sitting on stone benches (thin cushions provided) in the ancient Greek theater waiting for a production of Sophocles Electra in Italian. Go figure. We weren't sure what to expect but it was incredible! Great acting and a full Greek choir in red robes. A truly super experience!

Repeated wandering around Ortygia, a visit to the large and somewhat dilapidated archeological museum, and several reasonably good meals later, we were ready to leave, not enormously impressed so far with our Sicilian experience.

The next morning we walked around the corner to the car rental office where I asked jokingly whether they had an automatic shift vehicle.  

When I booked the car through AutoEurope I was told it was virtually impossible to get an automatic in Sicily and if we could they price would triple.  So I borrowed a stick shift car from a friend and renewed my 30 year lapsed acquaintance with the standard gearshift.  I felt reasonably secure with it and Gene had expressed a preference de for me to drive, so I was ready to bite the bullet, putting out of my mind winding roads, sheer drop offs and Sicilian drivers.  Well, somewhat out of my mind. Or was it I that was out of my mind?

I did a double take when the agent said that he was giving me an automatic shift for the same price.  Apparently an American had rented it, turned it in the day before, and this Good Samaritan agent had assumed we would want it so he held it for us til the morning!  I was overjoyed and relieved.  It's pretty big and I can't figure out how to turn off the radio without also eliminating the GPS, but va bene.

I've never used a GPS before and have little trust in it but Gene assures me it's working perfectly and the fact that he can't navigate his way to the grocery store will not be an issue.  So far so good.

Our next stop was Noto, only 45 minutes away but I fell in love with the hotel when I found it online and decided it would be our base for driving around the area.  The 7 Rooms Villadorata is part of one of the most important palazzos in town and has been done up beautifully by the woman who owns it.  Our room is about 15 feet x 20 feet, 20 foot ceilings, two floor to ceiling French doors opening onto a balcony, cool tile floors, a great huge shower, breakfasts served on the roof terrace overlooking the countryside...need I go on?  Need I ever leave the building?

Well maybe, but leaving it isn't all that satisfying.  I have a confession to make.  We aren't particularly enamored of Sicily.  At all.  Everyone we've ever talked to about it raved and we watched a lot of the Italian police series Commissario Montalbano and were seduced by the overhead shots of the landscape.  Why would we expect to be....bored?  But we are.  Too many churches in Venice maybe.

Yesterday we bit the bullet and rearranged our trip, dropping a vineyard resort and a week in Palermo and getting out of Dodge.  We're flying to Paris a week early, after a visit to the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento.  How did we ever think a week in Palermo could beat an extra week in Paris? 

N.B. You might notice the absence of photos on this post.  For some reason my iPad is rebelling and I can't get it to show the photos I've been taking with the iPhone.  The cloud is not cooperating.  I'll figure it out and post photos somehow.  Meanwhile, check my Instagram account: shellioreck.

 

Veniced Out

We are alone again, all our friends from Paris gone back and the rain over for a few days.  We haven't been doing much sightseeing as such, rather wandering around, stopping for coffee or a spritz, watching parents bringing their children home from school, chatting to friends they meet in the campo.  

We who go everywhere in cars no longer have the experience of running into our neighbors in the street, of knowing what time the old lady across the way goes out to do her shopping, and of being part of the fabric of a neighborhood.  Certainly privacy and the nuclear family experience have its advantages but we've lost something we may not even have known we had.  In Venice it's definitely still here.

We did drop into the Accademia for an hour to see some of the collection.  There was no line for tickets and the galleries were nearly empty.  When we had looked in on the weekend it was jammed, with dozens of people waiting to buy tickets.  Lesson for the future, avoid Venice on the weekend if possible.

There is not much in the way of street performers, just one fellow who plays music on drinking glasses who moves from one tourist passage to another, but yesterday we heard some lovely music up ahead and found this fellow swinging on the top of the wellhead in Campo San Barnaba.  He was very good.

We found ourselves on the Zattere for lunch, with a wonderful view across to Giudecca and boats of all sizes going by.  Someone had recommended Ristorante Riviera to us and there it was so we sat down under the umbrellas on the dock and had a delicious lunch of poached sous vide egg on tiny thin asparagus, two kinds of seafood pasta and pieces of grilled beef with vegetables.  Do you realize how difficult it is to get vegetables in a Venetian restaurant?!  

We're ready to leave Venice and head to Sicily but we have another two days here.  I think we'll take a boat out to Burano today and explore among the pastel painted houses and shops selling lace made in China.