Enough people asked if I were going to write a blog, that I finally decided to do it! So for the purposes of entertainment, information for future travels, and curiosity, here I am. Blogging!
We flew into Rome a week ago, and had a very strange little apartment up 96 steps near the Piazza Farnese (where Claire and I stayed in a convent 15 years ago, and the rest is history) and near Campo dei Fiori where Tony and Gabe stayed 20 years ago. Location, location, location. First the good news: our apartment had its own little terrace looking out over other rooftops, a comfortable bed, and a good shower. The bad news: it was up 96 marble steps, 8 flights of 12, without an elevator. And there was so very much street noise at night. And our lovely bed was really two twin beds. . . And no top sheet. Could somebody please explain why there are no top sheets in Europe? And we are supposed to sleep under a down comforter? Every night revellers randomly rang our front doorbell all night long. But! It was Rome! Cappuccinos everywhere! Great food and amazing things to look at everywhere! We researched the location of the best carbonara in Rome, and had a fabulous meal at Trattoria da’Enzo in Trastevere. We waited 30 minutes outside the little cafe in a giant line while they offered us cold white wine; we had fried artichokes and steamed chicory leaves and two orders of carbonara. It was fabulous. The whole staff was working at full intensity to make us happy. I showed them my postcard of Neem Karoli Baba’s quote “Love people and feed them”, tried to translate it into my bad Italian (“amare le persone e’ alimentare loro”) and they totally understood and smiled and laughed. Tony had a little bit of a headache two days later, but it was absolutely worth it. One week at a time.
We also saw (again) several of our favorite places in Rome: the deer head/crucifix over Piazza Sant’Eustachio, the Bernini elephant in front of the church where Catherine of Siena is entombed, the Pantheon, the Trevi fountain, and the twin Bernini statues on opposite sides of Rome: the reclining statue of St Teresa in ecstasy (Ayya Khema wrote some interesting theories about St Teresa and 3rd jhana, FYI) and the statue of the blessed Ludovica, in the ecstasy of joining with God as she dies. They might be soft porn. Religion, sex, you know. It’s confusing.
Rome was nuts. We have visited many times (6? 7?) but by far this was the most crowded we have ever seen it. One waiter said it’s because it’s April and colleges have breaks and people who can beat the heat, travel now. Our taxi driver said it’s because of terrorism in other parts of Europe. I think it’s because the Europeans don’t want to visit the US. At any rate, it’s just packed.
So then we took a train to Lucca, where we have apparently died and had our own ecstatic vision of paradise revealed. We are in an absolutely perfect little apartment, just inside the city walls of Lucca, just north of Pisa, just inland from the sea, 40 minutes west of Florence. There is parking inside the walls for residents of the city only, and everyone either walks or rides bicycles. We have Lucca’s favorite public water fountain just outside the front door of our building, and there is a constant stream, so to speak, of residents filling 8 or 10 liters of spring water from the spigot at the fountain. We are signed up for a language school 10 minutes from our apartment, and each morning I go downstairs to the neighboring bar, gulp a cappucino, and run to our class with Veronica, a totally delightful ragazza from a nearby town who speaks perfect English and Spanish and French and a bit of German. Our brains are a strange linguistic mush, and our conversations are in pidgin Italian. The barista next door, a busy, tidy 50 year old woman, already knows my order. “Un capuccio?” she asked me first thing this morning.
We will be here for two weeks. We had storebought roasted chicken and steamed spinach and grilled peppers for takeout dinner (from different stores). There are strawberries and cream for breakfast. We are missing bacon already. The weather is glorious. Tomorrow is Italian Independence Day, the commemoration of the day the Germans were expelled from Italy during WWII. Friday is the commemoration of the death of Santa Zita, who lived here in Lucca in the 13th century, and had a habit of stealing bread from her wealthy employer in order to feed the poor. When accused of stealing bread, she opened her skirts to show him the bread, and flowers instead came tumbling out of her apron. The piazza where she is buried is completely filled with an ongoing flower market and they don’t even try to lock anything up at night.
Paradise.
I will try to figure out how to add photos this week!
