March - May 2002 - Prologue
We have not left yet but the adventure has already
begun. Denise wants her 2002 birthday party to be somewhere exciting, and decides
Italy sounds about right for a change. Now, traveling
to Italy poses some interesting
challenges. We have been to Florence briefly, but do not have
the intimate knowledge of the country that we do of France. Nor do we have the
connections for accommodations. We talk to Italian-Canadians for ideas, but
everyone’s “village” seems to be the only place to go in Italy.
Barry looks on the Internet. Northern Italy? Southern Italy? The Mediterranean? The choices are wide
ranging. We agree quickly on Tuscany, an area that we have seen
briefly, and that has enchanted us in books. We find an apartment in a renovated
farmhouse overlooking Siena, one of the powerful cities
of medieval Tuscany. The house has a pool and
pizza oven. Most farmhouses come with a pizza oven. We suspect it is like a
barbecue. It rents Saturday to Saturday, and we will arrive on Saturday, so we
book our first week there. We look next to stay a couple of days at the beach
and then finish our trip in Rome. We book hotels in Viareggio and in Rome. All this was done via the internet,
in English. We have not seen any of these properties other than in photos. Some
of the e-mail dialog has been charming -- one hotel advertises itself as “an
ideal place for loving”. Barry can hardly wait.
Marco, the agent who manages the farmhouse property,
asks for a deposit but never charges it to Barry’s Visa card. Barry is a little
concerned. Actually, a lot concerned. Several e-mail exchanges confirm the
reservation, but do not entirely assuage Barry’s concern. The day we leave,
Barry checks on the internet and notes that the deposit has still not been processed.
In anticipation of Italy, we purchase money pouches
to wear under our garments. Italy is noted for thieves and
pickpockets, so caution is in order, even though we have survived numerous
trips to London, and a previous trip into Italy without incident. But
everything points to an adventure with differences …
Friday,
June 7
The Swiss+ flight to Zurich is half an hour late
boarding. We are concerned about our brief stopover time in Zurich and do not want to miss our
connection to Rome. We find this curious
because the Swiss are renowned for their clockwork precision. Once on board,
the captain announces that a favorable tail wind would get us into Zurich
before the airport opens, so he has to delay takeoff another 15 minutes. It’s
all clear to us now. Soon enough, we are on our way to another European
adventure.
Saturday,
June 8
It is a good flight – the food is enjoyable and we
both sleep a bit. Denise remarks that there was a lot of turbulence, but we are
pleased to have arrived at Rome airport – on time. We pass
through Italian customs without a word, and head over to the Europcar counter to pick up our car. The agent asks for Barry’s
credit card to charge the daily road tax, and seems genuinely upset when we show
him the voucher where it clearly states that all taxes and charges are prepaid.
Much discussion ensues among the agents behind the counter. We do not speak
Italian, but assume that they are discussing how to handle prepaid road tax.
Our body clocks are already out of synch and Denise muses that we will be quite
slowed down after a couple of weeks here.
We try to leave the airport parking lot, but the
exit card provided by Eurocar will not open the gate.
We call a security guard. He comes over to open the gate for us, and seems
genuinely upset at having to do so. Are little problems so difficult in Italy? Jamais deux
sans trois?
The drive to Siena takes about three hours, so
we stop at a service area on the highway outside of Rome for a little shuteye. A
half-hour deep sleep refreshes. We awaken to the realization that it is
stifling in the car (we are sleeping with the windows closed and the
temperature inside has risen to sauna level -- the car’s air conditioning has misled
us about how hot it is outside). We
shudder at the thought of what might have happened if we had slept longer.
We take the coast road north. We see glimpses of the
Mediterranean on the left and mountains
on the right. Everything arable seems farmed, but is also parched – the
landscape is very yellow. We arrive at Grosetto, and
decide to pull off for lunch. This is a small city with an old walled section
in the center. We go into the fortress and find a few restaurants. There are a
few bars that serve primi piatti (first
course pastas). They proudly display what looks like the covers of the frozen
food packages that the primi piatti come
in. Most pay little attention to us, though, as they are
focused on the World Cup game between Italy and Croatia. We find a little caffe that has no
menu and where the people speak no English (a little German, though), but we
manage to get a plate of penne with
tuna and cherry tomatoes. A little olive oil, and we
have a delightful lunch. We top it off with a gelato, and we are back on the road. The car radio seems to play
only disco music – dozens of stations, but only Italian disco. We will rarely
hear anything different.
A sign tells us we have crossed into Tuscany; we are heading into hilly
country. We catch glimpses of olive groves, vineyards, and other crops in the
valleys as we climb higher into the hills. We are eager to reach our
destination but are too tired to enjoy the exquisite scenery. Nevertheless, we
notice a girl standing in an entranceway along the road as we pass. A little
bit further, there is another one, scantily dressed. Then
another. These are not bus stops. It turns out that the girls, all black
girls, line the highway for kilometers into Siena (and other cities), plying
their trade.
We reach Siena’s outskirts and look for
the Siena Sud exit, as per the instructions we
received for the apartment. There are several highways around this small city,
and, somehow, we find the right one. A wrong turn, however, takes us on to another
highway, so we try to get back, and, somehow, we see the same Siena Sud exit once again. We take the proper turn and climb the
hill, reaching the private road, barely wide enough for our little Opel. The road twists around a massive old house, and then
climbs even higher past a few farmhouses and barking dogs to the top of the
hill. A kilometer up the road we see Il Palazetto, our home for the next week.
We are early and no one is there to let us in, so we
head out in search of a grocery store. We drive through many residential areas
of the city but see no groceries, wondering if anyone actually buys food in Siena. We eventually find a large,
modern supermarket. The store has a large assortment of wines, starting at one
Euro a bottle (about $1 US). One Euro? That can’t be
all that good, can it? So we move down the aisle and peruse the labels of the 2
Euro bottles. That still seems awfully cheap to us. Are we being wine snobs? We
settle on a 3.50 Euro bottle of Tuscan rosé. It later becomes clear that wine
is very inexpensive in Italy and the quality is good.
Stocking up on a few essentials, we return to the
apartment. Again, several wrong turns later, and we see the Siena Sud exit, and we are home. This time, we are welcomed –
yes, they really did have our reservation! But we will have to pay Marco at his
office as they are not equipped to use Visa cards at the property.
Our apartment, in one corner of the old restored
brick farmhouse, has a large kitchen-sitting room in pale yellow stucco with a
brick and wooden arch. It is fully equipped, however, we have brought our own
dollar-store coffee filter setup because, as we expected, the coffee maker is
espresso, which we both find too strong, especially at breakfast. There are two
bedrooms and a modern bathroom. The apartment is clean and spacious, with
windows giving panoramic views of the Tuscan countryside from three sides of
the building. We open our rosé, but we are too tired
to judge the wine’s greatness. The wine relaxes, though.
We stroll around the grounds. There are many
delightful little landscaped corners from which we can look down upon the countryside
and the old city of Siena, perched on a mountaintop a
few kilometers from us. The pizza oven is a little outdoor brick baking corner
stocked with firewood. A large swimming pool occupies an entire terrace. Cypress trees line one edge of the
garden, and flowering jasmine covers an entire side of the house. But we are
tired and hungry, so we have a little salad with marinated octopus and wine,
and we go to sleep at 7:00.
We awaken at 9:00 and it is dark. Have we
slept 2 or 14 hours? With no more notion of time and still tired, we both drift
back into a long, refreshing sleep.
Sunday,
June 9 – Old Siena
A real night’s sleep and we awaken refreshed. Denise
opens the shutters of the bedroom window, and we gaze out on the rolling Tuscan
countryside under the breaking clouds. From our bed we see many different
patches of green dotted with olive groves, rows of grapes and outcroppings of
cypress and umbrella trees, and houses with red-tiled roofs nestled into the
hillsides. We stay, transfixed on this view, for a long time. Like a fine work
of art, the Tuscan landscape beckons you to linger.
It is Sunday, and we expect that much is closed, so
we decide to stroll through Old Siena. We drive up the road to Porto Tufi, climbing high towards the old city. We enter the gate
and see signed pointing to the parking lot – there is restricted access to cars
in the old city. The entrance to the parking lot is clearly marked – there is a
gate and a machine clearly marked “no credit cards”, but there is no price or cash
slot, so we turn around and park in a cemetery lot outside the gate and
investigate. There is a cashier – “you push-a da
butt-on and you gett-a da teek-et”. We think that’s Italian for “idiot”. Barry prefers
not to let on that we are Canadian.
Once parked, we climb the steep, narrow streets to
the Duomo, (Santa Maria della
Scala), once destined to be the largest cathedral in Europe, but whose construction was
stymied by the plague, leaving Florence to dominate. The streets
are lined with red brick buildings, rising 4-5 storeys,
decorated with a variety of Gothic, Byzantine, and Renaissance motifs,
reflecting the many influences on this once-important city-state. The
cathedral, in true Pisan-Romanesque style, is built
in alternating rows of black and white marble, and the facade’s ornately
sculpted details in pink, black, and white marble transfix us with their size
and artistry. The colors are bright and fresh as they must have been centuries
ago. Sunday service is in progress, so we can only peek in. We will return.
We wander on to Piazza Il
Campo, a massive, gently sloping, semi-circular open space. Once the meeting
place for Siena’s contradas (districts), it is now ringed with restaurants and
bars, and, as we rightly guess, will be packed with tourists in the afternoon.
We wander through the maze of streets behind Il
Campo. Most of the shops are closed, but some are open and beckon with Italian
leather goods, ceramics, and prodotti tipico senese o toscani – the panforte (sweet fruit and spice confection), Brunella wines, fresh Pecorino cheeses, and so on. In a
little art shop we pick up a couple of watercolors– one depicts a farmhouse on
top of a poppy-covered hill – it could be where we are living.
We visit the cathedral of San Domenico,
dedicated to Saint Catherine, the patron saint of Siena. Frescoes peek out from
under the stucco covering the walls. We are not sure whether there is
restoration going on or whether that is all that remains of the 13th
century decoration.
We decide it is time for lunch. Siena offers two types of
restaurant – three coursers or pizzerias. We decide on a full lunch in the
basement of a small hotel on the way back to Il Campo. We descend three flights
of stairs to a series of small vaulted rooms full of diners. Denise’s rabbit
and Barry’s lamb are delicious, along with a tasty Tuscan vino tavolo (table wine).
We continue through the narrow sloping streets, and
do not have to look too far for the mandatory Italian ice cream. We enjoy our gelati sitting
amid the throngs on Il Campo. Fatigue has caught up with us and we decide to
return home, where we enjoy a glass of Corvo
(Sicilian wine) before retiring.
Monday,
June 10 – Arezzo
Arezzo is a wealthy city with a
large medieval core. It is about 50 kilometers from Siena, and the road is direct, in
fact, the signs point to the Arezzo-Grosetto
expressway almost everywhere around Siena. Once on that road, though,
we notice the absence of numbers or signs indicating major destinations. Barry
notes that this is reminiscent of New Jersey roads, where orienting
signs are also rare. Denise remarks that New Jersey roads must have been built
by Italians.
As we drive through the countryside, we pass through
vast stretches with no villages, lots of trees, the countryside dotted with
rural houses overlooking their farmlands. This is unlike what we have seen in France or Germany, where life is concentrated
in villages, and where you can usually see the next village from wherever you
are. But the rolling countryside is beautiful with patches of every green
imaginable checkering the rolling hills, punctuated by silvery olive groves and
tall, slender cypress trees. The neatness of the houses and surroundings remind
Barry of Amish country in Pennsylvania. Much of this part of rural
Italy is very modern, but Italian modern is respectful
of the landscape and does not jar these antique-lovers.
At some point we discover we are headed towards Perugia -- we must have missed a
turnoff somewhere. Our Michelin map helps a bit, except we have difficulty
finding the numbers posted on the roads. We figure that the road numbers are
less important than the destinations, and use those to orient ourselves. We
finally find a correct road to Arezzo and approach the city. We
follow the signs to Il Centro, but at
some point realize we are driving in circles through downtown, New Jersey style. At some point the
one-ways direct us into a residential area. Barry sees an old brick steeple in
his rear-view mirror. That must be the core. We turn around and proceed to an
arched entryway where we park. Strolling uphill for several blocks, we stumble
on a small market. We hear a couple speaking English, and Barry asks them if
they have a map. It turns out we are just a couple of blocks from the medieval
center.
One block away, Corso
Italia climbs to the top of the hill. It is lined with fine shops and trattorie. (Ristorante refers
to the finest, trattoria
the mid-range, and osteria
the most casual of the three-course-menu establishments.) As it is Monday
morning, all shops are closed until 4 PM. Towards the top of the
street, and a steep climb up, we visit Santa Maria della Pieve, which the tourist
books hail as having one of the most ornate Romanesque facades in Europe. Barry calls it an
architectural joke. The church is decorated with rows of columns in true Pisan style, but no two columns are the same, and the
spacing differs from storey to storey, entirely devoid of visual rhythm.
However, its large, plain interior and reliquaries with skulls and other body parts
are hauntingly beautiful.
We continue up to the Piazza Grande, which is
bordered by the semicircular rear of Santa Maria and facades by Vasari, a hometown boy. The scenery seems strangely
familiar, and we discover shortly that this is where the city scenes for the
film “Life is Beautiful” were shot. They are preparing for the annual jousting
contests, so our photos are cluttered by scaffolds and cranes, but we manage to
capture the narrow brick buildings decorated with feudal crests. We are a week
late for the monthly antique market, one of the largest in Europe, but the area is full of
antique shops and a few of them are open. Denise chooses a hand-coloured, century-old print and Barry manages to bargain
the dealer through his meager Italian and hand signs. A small victory!
We lunch at a small osteria tucked away on a small
side street. We both have the riboletta (Tuscan bean soup) followed by pici cinghiale (Sienese
macaroni with wild boar) and penne with
house sauce, both delicious and filling, while Portugal scores against Poland
in the World Cup on the screen above our heads.
We leave Arezzo towards home. This time we
successfully find the S73 which takes us into the Monte de Chianti. We detour
towards Civitella in Val Chiana.
There is an old castle in ruins, commanding a view on four sides from this
mountain peak. We see the fertile valley below, and the main road from Florence to Rome snakes through it. A plaque
recalls the day that the Nazis took over the town and executed 117 persons.
That must have decimated one quarter of the village population. Tired, and a
bit saddened, we head home.
We have a glass of wine (Chianti Colli
Sensi) by the pool to catch the long rays of the
setting sun over the Tuscan hills before retiring.
Tuesday,
June 11 – the Chianti mountains
We start today’s tour with a visit to the real
estate office managing our apartment. We have not paid our rent yet, but that
is ok. Business is transacted on a handshake, or, in this case, an exchange of
emails. We meet Marco, the agent in charge of our property. With his sparkling
blue eyes and sculpted cheeks and a smile straight out of a Vogue Uomo ad,
Denise does not really care that he has never filled in a Visa form before. She
willingly shows him how. Our 5 minute detour runs into a full half hour. Never
travel in Italy without your banker.
We head into the Chianti Mountains north of Siena and are, once again,
captivated by the beauty of the hilly countryside and its never-ending
patchwork of grapes, olives, wheat, and potatoes. We stop to appreciate the
scenery. Denise is amused by a flock of goats, clustered on a mountainside, and
whose movements on the landscape resemble a cloud morphing its way across the
sky.
We continue through the mountainscape. There is much
forest in this area, something we have not seen in other parts of Europe. The roads are tree-lined
and the landscapes are dotted by treed areas and fields outlined with rows of
cypress and umbrella-shaped trees. Flowers abound around the houses and
decorate the roads in the villages, a tradition that Italians coming to North America certainly brought with them
in abundance. Geraniums, impatiens and begonias decorate houses and gardens
everywhere. Oleander, mimosa, and hedge roses line the roadsides.
We arrive in Castellina in
Chianti, a small wine cooperative on a mountaintop in the middle of the Chianti
region, and we stop for a stroll. It is a neat town (as is every town we have
seen so far) whose pastel-colored buildings gleam in the sun. We meet a young couple from Houston who ask
where the main attraction is. Barry comments “Look around ... the main
attraction is everywhere around you!”
There are many enotecas (wine outlets), however, contrary to our previous experiences in France, these are generally
commercial outlets where we must pay a Euro or two to taste each wine. (If you
want to visit a winery, a few will let you do so but you must make
reservations.) We choose our store carefully. It is a family run business -- we
met the mother and two daughters. Two bottles of Chianti in our knapsack, we
return to the mid-day sunshine and continue up the street. An herb vendor at a
street stall tries to sell his mixtures. We discover he speaks better French
than English. In fact, according to him, he speaks four languages – Italian,
French, and German well – and English for selling. We vow to use French as much
as possible, only as an alternative to Italian, of course.
We buy some stamps in a little tobacco and handy
store. Two local men are conversing. The dialogue is minimal -- one is poking
the other in the stomach and saying, among other things, “spaghetti” and “lasagna”.
Barry joins in the conversation, pointing to his belly. He adds “rigatoni”, “penne”. The Italian men laugh. They enjoy it when you try.
We stop in a little bar and have some primi piatti for
lunch. The penne and tortellini are delicious. The restaurant
is full of German tourists (it seems that Italy is full of German tourists)
who are intent on the Cameroon-Germany match just starting up on the television.
We move on.
The road twists through the mountains, rewarding us
with pleasing vistas of Tuscany at every turn. In general,
the roads are easy to navigate, and quite safe. The one exception, perhaps, is
when we encounter a semi trucker coming towards us in the opposite direction
down a mountain curve, straddling both lanes of the two-lane road, cell phone
in his hand. But we survive. We stop in San Gimigniano,
famed for its medieval towers (built by rival families) of which 13 remain. Once
in the city, the towers are less apparent as the narrow streets with their 4-5
storey buildings dominate. However, the town is overrun with American tourists,
and every available storefront caters to them. We walk for a few minutes, but
do not stay.
Continuing west for another 30 km., the road climbs
and plateaus at a dizzying height. We stop in Volterra,
famed for its alabaster crafts dating back before the Romans, to the time of
the Etruscans. We visit the Etruscan museum which has a
overwhelming collection of carved funerary urns and household artifacts made by
the Etruscans. The quality of the artwork and the craftsmanship is outstanding,
as is the range of subjects depicted on the various objects. The Romans were
clearly copycats of earlier civilizations.
It is getting late in the afternoon, so we retrace
our route on the Volterra road and return directly to
Siena for dinner. After getting disoriented in the maze
of streets behind Il Campo, we settle on a little restaurant (Nello) with tables on the street. This is Italian nouvelle
cuisine: chick pea torte for Denise, goose paté for
Barry (antipasto); Tuscan bean soup for Denise and ravioli stuffed with
eggplant and goat cheese with zucchini flowers for Barry (primi
piatti); roasted porcini mushrooms for Denise and
stewed beef with Tuscan beans for Barry (secondi piatti). The restaurant owner, who takes our order, becomes
overwhelmed with emotion as he describes the preparation of the porcini to
Denise. Barry suspects that the overwhelming emotion has little to do with the
porcini. A bottle of Chianti, and the meal pleases
with every morsel. The woman at the next table, an Australian traveling alone,
engages us in conversation. She is on a rail pass through Italy, and seems to be looking
for a man. She has lived in Vancouver, traveled the Panama Canal, and, now, Europe. Good luck. The restauranteur pulls up a chair and sits down with his dog
to chat with us. Pleasantly full, we return home for sweet sleep.
Wednesday,
June 12 – Market day in Siena
Wednesday is market day in Siena. We leave the apartment
early and wend our way over towards the old fortress where the vendors have
already set up. Not too far along the way, traffic backs up, and it takes us
about 20 minutes to cover the last 4 blocks to the market. Parking is at a
premium, but there are spots at the adjacent stadium, although the parking
facilities are compact, even for our little Opel.
The vendors are set up four rows deep along the
walls of the fortress and into the Piazza La Lizza.
They are selling mostly clothing, although there are vendors of fabrics,
households, and a few food vendors amid the hundreds of stalls. We wander up
and down the rows and pick up a few things – a linen skirt for Denise, a hat
for Lili, some beach towels. Overall, the merchandise
seems to be department store quality, Italian made, and very reasonably priced.
It is hot, and we decide to return home to spend the
afternoon by the pool. We are dismayed to discover that someone had scratched
some of the paint off of the front bumper of our car in the narrow lane of the
parking lot. But not as dismayed as the owner of the Mercedes behind us, who
was furious at the deep front-to-back scrape left on one side of his vehicle.
Nevertheless, once home, we have a pleasant afternoon poolside.
We return to Siena for dinner at Le Campane, a fine restaurant coincidentally listed in one of
our guidebooks. We share an assortment of bruschetta – tomato (familiar to
North Americans), liver paté, olive oil, mushrooms,
and anchovies with cheese. Primi piatti
are gnocchi with lemon cream sauce and Lactaid for Denise and spaghetti vongole (clam sauce) for Barry. Our secondi
piatti calamari flowers with eggplant and zucchini
flowers for Denise and filet of sole for Barry rounds out a different view of
Italian cuisine.
Thursday,
June 13 – More Tuscan hill towns
The day starts off sunny, as it has for the last few
days. The air is still, and it promises to be glorious day for touring.
We decide to visit some of the smaller but famous
hill towns of Tuscany. We leave the apartment and
head down the private road. At the end, the road to Siena is blocked – they are
trimming the roadside bushes, at rush hour. We head towards Costafabbrio,
confident that we will find an alternative route. Legend has it that all roads
lead to Rome – we discover here that all roads lead to Siena; once there, signs point to
Rome.
The autostrade is busy – it is still rush hour (8:30). The road we are on is two
lanes wide, but is full of traffic at this early hour. We discover that Italian
drivers are very impatient, and they often attempt to pass, even on dangerous
curves. We are frequently tailgated at high speeds in preparation for being
passed. We nickname them “death wish” drivers.
We pull off the main and head up towards Montepulciano, famous for its Nobile
de Montepulciano wine. We park at the bottom of a
steep hill at the foot of the gate to the town and climb back up. Thursday is
market day in Montepulciano, so we tour the stalls. We
learn that markets do not work the same way here as they do in France or in Canada, where you take a bag or
basket and select your produce. In the Italian market, you ask for what you
want (“one kilo of apricots”), and the vendor selects and bags them. We
discover a comparably odd practice in supermarkets, as well. When paying, you
do not give the cashier any money. Instead, you place your money on a tray
beside the cashier, who picks it up and returns your change to you in the same
tray. But we digress. In the market we pick up some cherries and apricots for
snacks. Denise picks up a few linens and some Italian sandals. We return to the
gate to visit the told town.
Like virtually all towns we have seen, Montepulciano is on the top of a hill and the oldest parts
are at the very top. We climb the main street, which brings us to a level road.
We continue, following the signs to the Duomo. The street climbs again, passing shops selling wine,
cheese, and a wide variety of art and artisan products. Around a bend, and the
road climbs again, taking us to the summit and the old piazza. It is time – it
is getting hot under the cloudless sky and we seek shade wherever we can find
it. We do not wonder why the guidebooks suggest taking the bus to the top. The
cathedral is closed (unusual) but we visit the lobby of the Renaissance police
station, and rest on a cool shady stone ledge. Out of the sun, the stone keeps
at a comfortable temperature. All is quiet, except for the tourists snapping
photos. We look for steps to descend and find a steep shortcut to a lower
section of the main road. It is lunch time, and we stop at a pizzeria (arugula and tomato for Denise, tuna and basil for Barry).
Continuing downhill, we notice that shopkeepers are
setting up television sets on the street sides. The Italians are playing Mexico in the World Cup match
today. Little crowds form around each TV and emotions rise and fall as the game
progresses.
Further down, two elderly British women are in
intense conversation about a stones in a building’s foundation. It turns out that
these are tombstones, some of which remind us of the carcineria we saw in Volterra.
Returning to the car, we head out to Pienza, the former home of Emilio Piccolomini,
aka Pius II, who commanded a few grand Renaissance
buildings in his village once he achieved fame. It is a small, pretty town, and
aside from the Renaissance piazza in the middle, very modern, evocative of some
of the prettier wealthy California towns we have seen. (In
fact, much of this area reminds us of California, only much more lush.) We stop for coffee in the center. Two
shopkeepers in adjacent stores are watching the soccer inside. At every turn of
the game, they both emerge from their shops, and share their excitement,
jumping and shouting in rapid outbursts. Such are the times we wish we could
understand Italian better.
We leave Pienza across a
ridge which gives us one of the most beautiful vistas of Tuscany. The rolling green hills
give way to fields of wheat, and, the roads edged in flowering mimosa, we
partake of the fragrant gold and yellow spectacle. Monteciano,
yet another hill town, allows us to park in the center. This is fortunate,
because neither of us is ready for more climbing, our aching calves telling us
it has already been a long day. Two-and-a-half hill towns
seems to be our limit. We visit the old fort, but pass on the Brunello de Monteciano tasting –
it is a long drive back. We pause for a refreshing gelato and head back for a quiet evening home.
Friday,
June 14 – Wandering in Siena
On our last full day in the Siena region, we decide to return
to the city center for the afternoon. We visit the museum beside the Duomo (Museo dell’Opera
del Duomo). This collection
of ecclesiastical paintings and sculpture is housed in the shell of the never-built
wing of the cathedral. Only the outer walls of the new nave were built. The
museum’s 13 rooms climb into the arches of the walls of the church, and we see
at eye level, for the first time ever, the intricate carving and mosaics which would
have decorated the upper interior reaches of the new basilica, and which match
the existing one. We will rarely have another opportunity to get that close to
Renaissance architecture. Various rooms contain art and artifacts from the Sienese artists engaged in decorating the new wing, most dating
from the 13th century. An exhibit of illuminated missals is probably
the earliest form of sheet music we have seen. Our visit includes the Piccolomini library, with its frescoes of the life of Pius
II, and the Baptistery, with bronze and marble sculptures by some of the most
famous artists of the time (Ghiberti, Donatello, Vasari).
Lunch at a little ristorante in an alley includes pici in various
sauces. We are pleasantly satisfied as we enjoy our gelati in Il Campo. However, we
return home early, because we are leaving our little apartment tomorrow, so we
must pack.
Saturday,
June 15 – Viareggio
Today we are moving to Viareggio, a major resort town on the
Mediterranean on what is called the
“Tuscan Riviera”. The drive to the coast
is mostly uneventful. As we near Pisa, traffic slows on the autostrade
(Denise says “interstate”), but as we are not even going near Pisa and are in no particular
rush, and with Denise’s expert navigation, we find back roads that take us to Viareggio. We discover later that we had
made a wise decision – this turned out to be major gridlock, with cars overheating
on the expressway. We stop in Lucca for a quick lunch – panini
and gelati
– but we plan to visit here tomorrow.
We are staying at the Hotel President, overlooking
the beach. Across the street is an endless row of bagnos (beach clubs), each with
its rows of cabanas and colorful beach chairs and umbrellas geometrically arranged
as flanks of soldiers. There is no free access to the beach – the hotel sends
us to a bagno,
where we are assigned a chair and umbrella. The beach is orderly and clean and
feels safe. Our bagno
is popular with elderly women who sit in the shade playing cards for money. We
call them the “bubby set”.
The telephone – it should be a simple enough tool to
use, but in Italy, the rules change. Denise
has been trying to call the kids for a few days, now. We have been partially
successful, using an “800” number and credit card to leave voice messages from
public phones. To our later surprise, this 800 service ends up charging about
$35 US per two minute call on our Visa cards, whether the call is completed or
not. According to Rick Steves (whose well-written
guide to Italy assures a strong American
presence in the towns he describes for “doing” Italy) you have to convince the
phone to accept the numbers, so dial confidently. It is frustrating, especially
since the staff of our 4-star hotel do not seem to understand
what the fuss is all about. We do finally manage to dial out from our room, in
spite of their lack of help. (For the future – we will bring the Canada Direct
number.)
On to supper – our hotel desk tries to reserve a
table for us a one of several restaurants, but all are booked. It is Saturday,
and Viareggio is full of weekenders from Florence. We manage to get a seat at
Tito del Maro, and order our
meal from a variety of seafood appetizers, pastas, and other dishes. We order
the grilled fish, but the waitress, who does not speak any English, cannot give
us the English names for the fishes. Instead, she brings us a plate with a
selection of raw fish to choose from. Denise selects a fish, but we do not know
what it is. Our wine, an Italian Sauvignon Blanc, is served with style and is
delicious.
We are waiting for our antipasto, and notice that tables
around us, seated after us, are being served. The waitress is apologetic, but
it still takes over 45 minutes to receive our mussels with green beans and
gazpacho with scampi (both delicious). We decide that more patience is required
than in North America, this being Italy, but half an hour later, still waiting
for our primi piatti, we
have reached the point of frustration. We ask the waitress to cancel the fish
course. No problem. She brings us our pasta – linguini with seafood, also
delicious – and we repair to a little caffe for a cappuccino to end our meal. We never got to eat
our chosen fish, but the frustration of waiting and watching others being
served took away any remaining appetite. Besides, it is nearly 11
o’clock (we were at the restaurant at 8:15) and our day is nearly
ready to end.
The promenade along the lido is full of (mostly)
Italians of all ages, out for their Saturday night stroll up and down the
strip. Stores are still open, and street vendors ply their tacky wares. We
return to our hotel and sit on the balcony, watching the action below. A caffe across the
street has an incessant disco beat. With our window closed, we do not hear the
action below, and sleep peacefully.
Sunday,
June 12 -- Lucca
We are treated to a sumptuous buffet breakfast – one
of the pleasures of a 4-star hotel – before we head out to Lucca. There is an antique market
behind the walls of the old city of Lucca, and to our pleasant
surprise, it is one of the largest we have ever seen, stretching for blocks,
around corners, through alleys and filling piazzas in the center of this small
city. Vendors are selling every sort of furniture and bric-a-brac – old prints,
ornate dishes, and curios. Denise picks up some hand-embroidered tablecloths
and is proud of her bargaining ability in Italian, which she doesn’t speak. She
also picks up a small statue – it could be 50 or 200 years old – it is hard to
tell here. One vendor of old hardware catches our eye. The stall is run by a
grandmotherly woman – very unusual. We pick up some decorative hardware, brass
bows, and the like from her. She will bargain, not easily, though, but she
rewards the deal with a grandmotherly smile. Lunch is salad in a little caffe, and we
retire to Viareggio, where we relax on the
beach in the shade of our assigned umbrella.
Tonight, we have a dinner reservation at Da Pino, so we head over to the
little ristorante
hidden several blocks behind the beach. We share an antipasto – sharing is not
often done in Italy – but the waiter-owner
doesn’t raise an eyebrow when taking the order. (We tried that in a Sienese restaurant and got two identical plates.) The
antipasto arrived, two tiny slices of marinated fish –
delicious, but gone in two bites. We reflect on the gall of the restauranteur to charge 13 Euros for this morsel. It
reminds us of Toqué in Montreal, where a lone oyster runs $7.
It turns out, however, that there is a series of plates to follow as part of
the antipasto. First a zucchini flower stuffed with marinated fish, fish rolled
in some sort of herb in a grilled eggplant cover, more marinated fish – a
heavenly assortment of flavors and colors. We follow with a seafood risotto,
cooked just right, full of little pieces of squid and redolent of the sea. Our
mixed grill of seafood follows – whole squid, crayfish, scampi, shrimps, and rouget, all perfectly grilled and glistening in olive oil,
the only seasoning used. Our Nobile de Montepulciano, strong on the nose but easy on the throat,
is a delicious accompaniment to this meal. The friendly and prompt, but not
rushed, service restores our faith in resort restaurants after the fiasco of the
previous night. This is first class Italian cooking at a seaside resort, where
fish reigns supreme. A stroll down the lido caps off a glorious meal.
Monday,
June 17 – The Tuscan Riviera
We head north to tour the Riviera. The road passes miles of
hotels (on the east) and beach clubs (on the west side – the shore). Indeed,
there is no public beach access here. The cleanliness of everything is
striking. The buildings and beach clubs are all sparkling clean and flowers and
shrubs abound.
We pass an open market in Lido de Camaiore, so we stop to pick up a few last-minute mementos.
As with the other open markets we have seen, this is primarily clothing and
hard goods. There are a few food stands, but not at all in proportion to the
rest. The food sellers offer sausage, cheese, and pizza. There are no fruits or
vegetables. We suspect that this is because a large number of Italians have
sumptuous vegetable gardens where they grow a wide variety of salad greens and
vegetables. Add the tendency to decorate with geraniums and impatiens, and we
understand why Italian-Canadian homes look as they do.
We pull into Carrara, in the center of the
marble quarrying area. We can see the Carrara Mountains from the beach, and they loom
high behind the town, the white marble excavations looking like snow from a
distance. We had passed these on an earlier trip to Florence, but now have an
opportunity for a closer look. Stone vendors line all of the roads around the
town, ready to sell Michelangelo (who kept an apartment there) or anyone else a
hunk of the bright white stone. We stop for lunch in a little bar. There is one
free table; the others have reservation cards. Brazil is playing Belgium, and soon the tables are
full of men in suits and ties, passing their 3 hour lunch in the bar. The level
of excitement is low, though, awaiting Italy’s big game tomorrow.
Behind Carrara, there is a little village
nestled at the base of a white expanse of mountain. We find the town, and the
road through it is barely one lane wide, twisting and climbing its way up the
mountain side, lined with houses and chicken coops all the way. We hope this is
a one-way street. The road is so narrow, we do not know what we would do if we
met another car. At one point we stop climbing and twist and turn our way back
to the foot of the village. The only tourist facility here is an arduous
whirlwind visit. It is very hot and the air is full of marble dust, so we
decide to head back for a refreshing dip in the Mediterranean and snooze under the shade
of our umbrella. If the bagno
seems over-orderly, it is also very comfortable.
We dine simply tonight – salad and pasta for Denise,
salad and pizza for Barry. Barry receives his pizza within 10 minutes, piping
hot from the oven. About 10 minutes later, we both receive our salads. Denise’s
pasta follows before she has a chance to finish her salad. We notice that this
is how other tables are being served as well. Dishes come out of the kitchen,
not in the sequence they are ordered, but in the sequence the chef decides to
cook them. Is the chef really Mamma, who spends her entire evening cooking one
dish after another, catering to the caprices of her family? If you want to eat
in synch, you have to order the same thing; however it doesn’t seem to bother
anyone else. Our clock continues to slow down.
We stroll out on the pier and spend a few minutes
watching children playing in a bumper car arcade ride. In spite of our differences,
we see that children are the same all over, squealing with glee as they bump
each other and fiddle with the controls. There are many children at this resort
and a large number of seniors as well. We see a lot of grandparents taking care
of children, and middle aged persons taking care of their parents. This is how
we understand life is for Italian-Canadians as well.
Viareggio caters to a primarily
Italian clientele. In fact, we sometimes sense that the level of service we
receive is sometimes less than that given to Italians. That may also be related
to our avoidance of bribes of any sort, which we understand may be a big part
of life here.
If nothing else, Denise is taller than most
Italians, and she likes feeling tall as we stroll the evening out along the
lido.
Tuesday,
June 18 – the big game
The day starts warm and sunny, as it has been since
our second day in Italy. We are in no rush to get
out, as we are staying in Viareggio today. We go to the beach
and enjoy the shade of our umbrella. No dip today. The Mediterranean does not look too clean and
does not attract us. For the most part, the water has not been very clean,
especially as we get closer to the harbor.
It is noon, and we notice that the beach
has become eerily empty. There are fewer tourists than on the weekend, and the
Italians have moved to the bars and restaurants, preparing to cheer their team
in the World Cup game against South Korea. We head back to our room
to watch the game in air-conditioned comfort. There is no cheering – Italy lost 2-1 in overtime. There
is a lot of controversy about the judging. The Italians will be beating their
collective breasts for days to come. A French commentator says that the Koreans
do not have a “culture du fute”(football),
but we feel that Korea did play better.
We begin our preparations for Rome. We will not have the
luxury of a car with back seat and trunk to stow stuff going into the city (we
must return our car at the airport, where we picked it up). Everything will
have to fit in a suitcase, so Denise exercises her superb skill at fitting it
all together.
We stroll through the back streets of Viareggio and discover yet another
marketplace, this one a permanent one. There are more shoe vendors than Barry
has seen in one place. We continue on to Da Stefano
for supper – fish again – grilled dorato. Denise says the gnocchi are the best she has ever
had. Everything is good, but we still sense that the service suffers for
non-Italians. (In Siena, where there are more
English-speaking tourists, we did have better service.) Perhaps the level of
service overall here is just not very good. Period. Maybe it will improve in Rome.
We stroll along the lido and have coffee and spumante in
preparation for tomorrow – Rome and Denise’s birthday.
Wednesday,
June 19 – on to Rome
We have packed everything into two suitcases for a
quick escape from our car when we arrive in Rome. The hotel porter brings
our bags to the car and Denise tips him a few Euros. The bags are heavy, but,
apparently, nothing compared to what the Germans bring, according to the
porter, who says they travel with their entire household. Barry reaches out to
get the car keys from the porter, who gives Barry a quizzical look. He said he thought
Barry wanted the tip back. We guess that in Italy women do not do the
tipping.
We are fortunate that the traffic is light, and the
trip to Rome is easy. We stop in Tarquinia
for lunch and then head out to visit a renowned Etruscan necropolis, but, alas,
it is closed on Wednesdays.
Arriving at Rome’s Fiumicino
airport we return the car and take the train into downtown Rome. We meet a couple (she is
from Montreal, he is from Newfoundland) on their way to Capri, and hear our first English
in over a week.
Once out of the train, we follow the exit signs and
find ourselves on a side street outside the Termini station. There are no taxis
at the stand or cruising. Finally, one across the street spots us and motions
us to cross, but we do not jaywalk on our first day in Rome. There is a curve with no
lights and the cars enter the curve at top speed. The cabby leaves his car and
walks into the middle of the road, stopping traffic so that we can cross. We the
have a classic Roman taxi experience, racing along non-existent traffic lanes, as
Romanesque facades and baroque statues whiz past us, until to arrive at our
hotel.
The late afternoon heat is overwhelming, but the hotel
is cool inside. The porter takes us to a room with queen size bed, but its
wall-to-wall carpet makes it seem unattractive. The second room they show us
has twin beds, but it is tiled, so we take it and cool off quickly. There is a
short power failure, but the power comes back on in time for us to shower and
dress for supper. The air conditioning does not come back on.
We head to Da Pasquino (recommended by the hotel desk) at the south end
of Piazza Navona for a delightful meal of salmon and
swordfish carpaccio, insalata caprese with bufala, and spaghetti all’oglio,
and veal scaloppini. The waiter does
not mind that we do not order a full dinner antipasti
and primi piatti and secondi piatti. That
works out to a lot of food. (Some waiters do not leave the table until you have
ordered three full courses.) The waiter, who speaks a little English, also helps us make
our choices, which are not all on the menu. (We have frequently seen Italians
walking into restaurants and telling the wait staff what they want to eat, not
necessarily what is on the menu. This is one of the most enjoyable and
reasonable meals we have had in Italy.
We are in the city, now, so the sound of a car alarm
going off beside the dinner terrace seems normal. We meet a teacher from Oregon with her teenage daughter,
traveling to Sorrento and then Liguria to retrace her Italian
ancestry. So far, we hear American English wherever we go.
We finish off at one of the tourist caffes in Piazza Navona. Denise asks for the dessert menu. The waiter tells
her he is the menu. Barry says that we have something more like tiramisu in
mind. Cappucino and tiramisu caps off Denise’s birthday.
Thursday,
June 20 – Vatican City
We are up bright and early to the morning market in
Campo dei Fiori, about 6
blocks from our hotel. There are almost no tourists in Piazza Navona at 6:30 AM – it is serene in the cool
morning air. The market is just setting up as we pick up some cherries and
peaches for snacking. We return to our hotel for breakfast, noting that
tourists are already starting to congregate in Piazza Navona
as we pass through.
We head out to the Vatican City after breakfast. This is
about a 15 minute walk along the Tiber River, bringing us to the massive
arcades of St Peter’s Square. It is early, but there are already many tourists.
We note the airport-style walkthrough metal detectors, not in use today, to
control access to the piazza, presumably when the Pope gives his audiences. We
are manually checked before entering, though.
St Peter’s is massive, larger than any church we
have ever visited, and the scale and variety of artwork overwhelming.
Larger-than-life statues by Michelangelo and others populate every niche. The
church itself is ornately decorated with carved marble and gilt on every
surface. It is overwhelmingly large and beautiful. A statue of St Peter dates
back to the first millennium, its toes worn away from people touching them. We
see a pilgrim in sackcloth and ashes in devout prayer against the wall and
wonder for a moment whether he is real or another statue. We walk through the
crypt to exit, and see the tombs of many popes. Not being Catholic, we find
this show of opulence and imagery massively over-indulgent, especially with all
the beggars we have seen on church doorsteps.
The real show for us is the Vatican Museum. This is north of the
church, although we have to exit to the south, even though there is little
people traffic on the north side. We wander along the colonnaded walls, trying
to find as much shade as we can, and visit the Vatican bookstore, however,
decide not to buy anything until after having visited the museum. We are in
there less than 5 minutes, and the entrance is now closed, and we must exit via
the rear into the full sun. More rules – it must be the 10:03 switcheroo or something –
there is no explanation. Rick Steves describes it as Italy “wiggles”. We can’t find a
better descriptive.
The entrance to the Vatican museum is about a kilometer
to the north of St Peter’s. There are many tourists flocking to see one of the
world’s greatest collections of ecclesiastical art. The Pinacoteca (picture gallery)
includes works of Italian artists up to the 17th century– Leonardo,
Raphael, and so on. We see Egyptian mummies and Greek gods, but the star of the
show is the Sistine Chapel. Signs point
to the Sistine Chapel, and we trek through a kilometer of opulently decorated
rooms full of Roman and Renaissance statuary of every possible human and animal
subject. We reflect on how these rooms are built as papal residences; in fact,
much of Rome belonged to or was decorated for the popes and
their families.
We arrive at the Sistine Chapel. It is so crowded,
there is barely room for us to enter, but we are soon overtaken by the sheer
beauty and scale of Michelangelo’s work. The stories – Moses, Jesus, the Last
Judgment, Michelangelo’s haggard self-portrait, the Creation – these are all
bright and alive in the recently cleaned Sistine Chapel. We pause to reflect on
the awesome beauty of this work before heading out into the mid-day heat. It is
too hot to tour, however, we stop in several shops along the way for shots of
air-conditioning, and two gelati give brief relief as we return to our hotel.
Thursday,
June 20 (Part 2) – Trevi fountain
We head out in the late afternoon, rested and partially
refreshed. We had asked to have the air-conditioning checked after last night’s
power failure, but it is hot in our room. We suspect they checked that the air
conditioner was there, but not that it worked. We ask again to have it checked.
We are changing our clothes twice or three times a day because of the heat. At
least we can wear shorts outdoors now (the Vatican has a strict dress code).
There are many streets in old Rome that are zona piedonale –
restricted to pedestrians, so we follow the pedestrian path eastward from
Piazza Navona. Our first stop is the Pantheon, an
immaculately preserved building dated AD 26, and still used today for its
original purpose – a church. None of this Renaissance decoration here – these
columns are holding up beams that support the roof – this is honest
architecture.
We walk along narrow streets lined with
stucco-covered houses in ocher and siena and other earthy colors.
Broad Renaissance avenues cross, but the action is on the narrow streets and
piazzas. There is wall-to wall commerce in the ground floor of every building, reminiscent
of London. In fact, the general impression we are getting of Rome is disjointed – it has the
smell and noise of New York, the scale of London, and the complexity of Paris, all rolled up in one. We
have yet to pick out a characteristic that is distinctively Roman. It’s as if
each piazza it is a village unto itself.
We continue on to the Trevi
fountain. No romantic scene here with Audrey Hepburn and
Gregory Peck in sweet embrace. The terrace is full of young American
tourists with backpacks and Rick Steves’ book; we
barely find a spot to admire the fountain’s sculpture. The beauty is lost with
the souvenir stand in front and the big red signs pointing to
the McDonald’s a block away.
We continue as far as the Spanish Steps, also
crowded with tourists, but we will be here tomorrow, so we decide to head back.
We select a little restaurant (we actually reject a
few because of the obnoxious waiters hustling business in the street and strutting their macho Italian stuff to Denise) for a
delicious pasta and roast veal. A car alarm goes off again while we are eating.
We meet an elderly couple of retired university teachers from Phoenix who are spending a month in
Italy. They are expert travelers – she likes India the best – and he was
professor of architecture, so we have much to talk about. She mentions a hotel
they frequent which just upgraded from two to three stars by putting in hair
driers. We have four stars – we wonder what it takes to get functioning
air-conditioning.
It is barely 10 o’clock, not late by Italian
standards, but we are tired after a day of long walks and retire to the comfort
of our room. The air conditioning is finally working.
Friday,
June 21 – The Borghese
Today we have a reservation to visit the Museo Borghese. We decide to head
out early on foot. The museum is supposed to be a 15 minute walk from the Spanish
Steps, but it is at least double that, and even though it is early morning, the
climb up the Steps and then past the Medici museum is sweltering. The last
portion of the walk takes us through the treed gardens of the Villa Borghese, however, we are overheated. A vendor of frozen bottles
of drinking water is welcome, even at 2 Euros for a big ice cube. We reach the
museum well in advance of our visit time, so we have a chance to browse in the
bookstore. The visit begins, and we enjoy non-ecclesiastical works of the
Italian masters such as Caravaggio, Titian, Raphael, Vasari,
and the sculptor Bernini. In addition to the art on
display, frescoes and sculptures adorn every surface of the mansion built for
the Cardinal Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V.
Lunch on the Via Condotti,
amidst the leading designer shops, consists of a delightful pasta salad. We
head back to the hotel for a cooling rest and just miss
England and the US losing their World Cup
slots.
We wander over to the Trestevere
(literally, “across the Tiber”) section of Rome. This area is a bit rougher
than what we have seen, with the natives appearing a bit resentful of the
gentrification of their neighborhood and the tourist influx. There are charming
art shops and crafts shops, and a rock band is warming up in the piazza of
Santa Maria de Trestevere, but we decide to head back
to the other side of the river so as not to get caught here at night. We have dinner
in Campo dei Fiori, where
we have the first bad wine we ever had in Italy. This must be what they
sell for one Euro in the grocery stores. We have had some decent 10
Euro-a-bottle wine in restaurants. The pasta was good, though, and we head over
to Piazza Navona, where we pick up a watercolor from
a vendor and enjoy some limoncello as a nightcap.
Saturday,
June 22 – wandering in Rome
We decide to skip the Forum and Coliseum. We have
seen Roman arenas in better states of preservation in Nimes and Orange (France), and it will be
hot in today’s cloudless 33o. We start instead past the
Pantheon, towards the Piazza del Minerva. The church, Santa Maria del Minerva,
is preparing for a wedding, and all the pews are covered in blue fabric and
white lilies adorn the aisles. It adds a delightful sir of celebration to the
otherwise somber medieval interior. The guests begin to arrive, but we do not
want to wait around for the bride; we can imagine what a wedding party looks
like.
We continue down the street, which is lined with
shops catering to religious institutions. This is definitely where you go to by
a miter, an icon, priest’s robes, and so on – it is a thriving business, and a
part of Rome’s Catholic infrastructure. We pass the remains of
one of Agrippa’s installations (a hole with a bunch of broken columns) and into
the immaculately decorated Gesu church to cool off.
This is the headquarters of the Jesuit order, and, as it happens, three young
men are taking their vows to the priesthood with a cardinal presiding. The
music and choir add a haunting beauty to the ceremony. It adds yet another dimension
to Rome’s mystery, with its constant traffic of priests and
nuns carrying briefcases as if accountants or lawyers on their way to work at
the HQ, the opulence of the churches, the beggars in virtually every church
doorway...
But we head back up Via del Corso,
the main shopping drag, looking for air-conditioned stores to cool off in
momentarily. Our walk takes us back to Via Condotti
and the Spanish Steps – we have walked the grandeur of Rome. We head back to our hotel,
picking up a few last minute mementos before dining again at Da Pasquino. The same waiter, Ivano, is there and recognizes us. He is the best waiter we
have had in Italy, and he knows it. He would
like to come to Canada to work. When Barry
explains that the temperature can go to -20 in the winter, he changes his mind.
We share the marinated fish appetizer and the proscuitto
and melon, the proscuitto sliced freshly from a big
ham at the front of the restaurant. Denise’s lobster pasta and Barry’s pasta vongole satisfy.
We finish with a limoncello in Piazza Navona and return to our hotel, pleasantly full, to
complete packing our bags. We are going home tomorrow.
Sunday,
June 23 – returning home
Two weeks and a day after arriving in Italy, it is time to leave.
Unlike many trips, which seem to go by in a flash, this one seems full and
complete. Our week in Siena seems quite distant from
the present, although the beauty of the country will remain etched in our
memories for a long time. Our drive out of ancient Rome takes us through a residential
area of modern midsize apartment buildings, each with its balconies a riot of
geraniums and impatiens in pots and boxes. As in old Rome, ground floors of building
are devoted to commerce. We have seen a side of Rome as a small village that has
grown into a big village.
We take off from Rome airport, anticipating
seeing our family again. Denise muses that a patate frite at La Belle Province would be
good. Barry adds “and a smoked meat sandwich, too”.
But when we arrive home, a care package of fresh pasta
and mushroom (the awesome sauce from “La Maison des Pâtes”) is sitting on the counter with a little note from Sandro, our son-in-law, hoping that this reminds us of our
trip.
As if we could forget…