We arrive in Greece...

Arose like good soldiers at 4:30 a.m., our taxi whisked us to the airport, and we boarded the Alitalia flight for Rome, then Greece (Alitalia not a glamour airline...sitting down to dirty seats, one wondered if they didn't have the time to vacuum, did they have time to check the oil). (Note: had one of the best cafe lattes in the Rome airport of all places). Our taxi driver, speaking occasional German and playing loudly with some kind of worry beads, whisked us to the Economy Hotel in Athens. We are ecstatic because, while it is not glamorous, it is cheap (60 Euros a night). And most importantly it is clean...spotless in fact.

We set out for the Acropolis, after a tourist trap lunch...food was great but we paid way too much and are embarrassed (lamb, chicken, eggplant, yogurty stuff, and of course, the ubiquitous french fries.

Athens is much more crowded than when Ricky W. and I visited a couple of years ago (I think we were here in March...so much cooler and less peopled).

The Acropolis was great. It sits on top of a rocky mountain in the center of Athens, complete with the temple to Athena Nike, the magnificent Parthenon (not the Pantheon...that's the round building in Rome with the hole in the roof), and assorted other temples. It was political, religious, and in some ways military center of ancient Athens. Unfortunately, or ultimately fortunately I guess, there was much reconstruction work going, and scaffolding aplenty. But still, it's impressive stuff, especially to Professor M. who said that he fulfilled a lifelong dream with this visit. With glee, he said, "Socrates walked here!" (Although we think he may have busted his ass a few times as the marble on top of the Acropolis is very slippery).

We also learned, to our chagrin, that we have the Italians, the Venetians to be exact, to thank for destroying the Parthenon. Seems the Venetians were battling with the Turks, who had control of and stored ammunition in the Parthenon somewhere back in the 1800s. The Venetians bombed the hell out of the Acropolis, including one doozy that gave us the decrepit Parthenon we find today. Still, it is something. And to stand there (in the blistering sun even) and to gaze off into the surrounding city of Athens and to imagine what it was like...it's better than t.v.

Down into the Plaka, the old section of Athens at the foot of the Acropolis to find the bar Ricky W. and I frequented...a famous ouzo bar (and distillery) named Bretto's. It's been open for a hundred years, and has had only three owners. When we visited last, the owner was a guy who was the spitting image of Pope John Paul. He's sold out, and the new chatty owner has yuppified the place. He's selling t-shirts, even fixed the shelving. But he's amiable, and informed us that, in addition to us, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have visited, as have countless other celebrities. So there.

We also chatted up a couple from Tasmania (?) on their honeymoon. Lawyers, both, they were quite civilized nonetheless...Leslie confessed that she was the most perfect woman he has ever met (that was several glasses of wine down).

On, finally, to Ricky W. and my favorite Athens restaurant, Tavernos Xino. It's down a side alley, and is worth the hunt. Simple, rustic food (order whatever Big Daddy tells you to order), served this time out in the patio because of the heat, with the Acropolis looming and countless cats roaming nearby. My food was perfect...a Greek salad (here served with no lettuce, only tomatoes, cucumbers, kalamta olives, and lots of feta...an orzo pasta with lamb). Leslie fared less well. He ordered the lamb something or other and it turned out to be a gooey mess, and he was frustrated by the fact that the lamb was served on the bone and he had to struggle to figure out what he was eating. Oh, well...mine was magnificent, and it cost about half what our lunch did so at least that was a relief.

Tomorrow we conquer the rest of the Acropolis complex, and maybe even get to the port nearby, Piraeus. We also hope to schedule a tour of Delphi the day after...the bellybutton of the universe where the oracle used to sit. For a classics professor (and his weasel of a friend who studies the classics between lawsuits), it's grand stuff.

We do not miss the driving in Italy. Nor do we miss that mid-day break that everybody takes that ruins your schedule. Alas, we have returned it seems to civilization.

Agrigento, Palermo, and Ciao to Italy...

We arrived in Agrigento without incident...a drive of 2 or 3 hours...until we hit the city limits. Our Michelin directions failed us and once again we found ourselves on one-lane streets heading up or down, never flat, with traffic coming in all directions and everyone really wanting us to get out of the way. A dearth of street signs doesn't help. Again, despite my masculinity, I retreated into the tourist information office to seek help, and found it. After several tries, we were finally able to follow the directions properly (they hid one of the main streets out), and we found the hotel at the end of even more twisty, one-lane, and heavily parked streets. The hotel, actually a bed and breakfast, was incredibly nice, an old family home that is now open for tourists. We had a suite, mind you, with air conditioning that worked (although Leslie has tested every hotel refrigerator and they truly are nothing more than an insulated box...nothing getting cold in there). And the rooftop terrace overlooked the Valley of the Temples, so our hotel owner pointed out each of the temples, ordering us to stand precisely where he was standing. An incredible site: you look off towards the ocean and the valley between the modern city and the sea is divided by a mile-long line of temple ruins.

We gathered our strength and headed out to confront the temples on foot (after driving the wild streets of Agrigento again). It was worth it...the temple of Concordia is, I am told, the best preserved Doric columned temple anywhere (or something like that). It sits on its perch above the ocean, all columns intact. Also made me want to worship Athena or something.

Further down the road, we found more temples, most in much worse shape (one had only three columns standing). The highlight was finding the altars for worshipping the chthonic divinities...cool, man. I got to give it to the Greeks, they know where to site a city. The cool breezes blew in constantly from the ocean...until our walk back to the car when it got hotter than Pompeii (the Christian burial thingies ended up blocking the wind)...if you know what I mean.

Our dinner last night was right out of a DeSica movie...you find the restaurant only after several right angle turns down deserted alleys until suddenly you are in a little piazza with tables. You sit down to dinner with family apartments surrounding you. We watched as Mama hung in the window over us and kept her eyes on the kids, who were playing in the street (you know, next to my table), with dogs barking, etc. A terrier with an appropriately emotive face jumped up to look out of the window next to Mama and comment on the proceedings. It was very sweet...and the food was good too. Leslie scored with a parmigiana made, get this, with fish! Layers of eggplant and tomato and fish and it was incredible. I played it safe with shrimp s'getti.

By the way, you should try this next time you are in Sicily: because there is a not a single, flat plane anywhere on the island of Sicily, we spend the time between courses trying to estimate the slope of the angle that we find ourselves in at that particular restaurant. Some of the angles are quite challenging (especially 3 beers down).

After a cool night in the suite, we enjoyed breakfast on the terrace and retreated to the Toyota Aygo (which we squeezed into a 'parking space' on the street between a garbage dumpster and a driveway...Ricky W. would have been proud). Our drive to Palermo took only 1 and a half hours through spectacularly beautiful countryside, hilly, mountainous, gold, brown, and lots of rocky cliffs at the top. (Sicily needs better public relations...this is one of the most beautiful terrains my pitiful ass has ever seen--and we did not even get to Mount Etna, the island volcano--and all I know about the island is that mafia crap).

Found the hotel amazingly quickly in Palermo, which is big, but beautiful in an old, complicated way. You get a real sense of the different folk who have run the place just from the architecture...the Norman stuff, the Arab stuff, the Baroque. Sometimes all in one building. Our biggest disappointment, however, is that, after hiking across the old city to the Cathedral (good stuff), we ventured a few blocks more to see the Palatine Chapel, which is said to feature the greatest Pantocrantor (sp?) mosaics around (as I understand it, these are depictions of Christ as the creator of everything, but done in spectacular gold mosaics). Of course, after 45 minutes of trying to figure out how to get to the church in the governmental complex, we find that it is effectively closed for restoration (you can go in for 6 Euros and see nothing, or take some tour for 20 Euros and climb on scaffolding or something. The guide was not helpful). Instead, we opted to return the rent car.

Another harrowing journey in the Aygo across Palermo, to this city's version of B.F.E. (not sure why Leslie feels compelled to rent cars from facilities on the edge of town). We had no map, only a mapquest set of directions, and after only 45 minutes, a few driving violations, and a quick question to a cluster of police on the side of the road, we accidentally stumbled on the rental place (I screamed like a 9 year old girl, 'Leslie, Sixt Car Rental! There it is!'...the funny thing is that the manager was on the street waving us in...how did he know we'd be passing by.) We said our farewells to that pitiful excuse for a car and caught a taxi back to the hotel.

So, we now face our last night in Italy. Boo hoo. We have to catch a 6:30 a.m. flight to Rome to Athens tomorrow. That will surely be interesting (our catching that flight, that is).

In the meantime, we are having drinks on the rooftop (where later they promise a concert will be had).

In regard to some of your posts, I keep insisting that Leslie sit down and 'blog,' but he just won't. I will try to find an internet cafe in Athens that serves drinks, and perhaps woo him to the keyboard that way. Ciao.

A good meal, finally, and a lost day

We left cramped Taormina (I have never been to a place that so desparately clings to the side of a mountain like Taormina...you get the feeling that one trip, and you will slip to a certain, rocky, and finally wet death) yesterday for Siracusa. The drive was fine, except we had to get off the main Autostrade, and onto a much lesser highway, much more trafficky.

We found Siracusa and our hotel without incident. A lovely little bed and breakfast overlooking the marina and featuring a not-overbearing maritime theme. Our hotel clerk directed us to lunch nearby...Porta Marina something or other. It was the best meal of the trip. Finally something worth celebrating food-wise: risotto marinara with seafood (shrimp, mussels, and squids) and Leslie consumed an entire giant bowl of mussels in tomato sauce. There were two large Italian families in the restaurant other than us, and after the initial discomfort of our arrival, everyone settled down to a lovely Sunday afternoon dinner.

Off to hike across town to the archeological museum only to find it very closed. Today being Monday, it is also closed. As will be, we have realized, all other museums in the city. So we have opted for a quiet day of reading and, for Leslie, cancelling his lost credit card.

Oh, and last night we committed the mortal travelers sin. Elected to eat dinner on the touristy piazza. And we paid! It was actually inedible, and pricey at that. (And we believe that's where Leslie may have lost his card.) To make up for that pitiful episode, I found and forced down a fried rice ball finally (stuffed with pancetta and cheese) and it was, like all great street food, transcendent.

A LATER NOTE...

Actually, as in all things Italian, we found the archeological park, despite all indications in guide books and signs to the contrary, to be open today. So we ventured in to take a gander at the Greek and Roman amphitheaters and Dionysus' ear (a curved cave thingy). Leslie enjoyed particularly the aptly Italian description of one of the features of the park. Without acknowledging the ridiculousness of the sentence, the guide told him, very seriously: 'Follow this street and there you will find Archimedes' Tomb. But there are no signs. Also, it is not Archimedes Tomb. It is a Roman tomb.' We get a lot of that. Siracuse, if you must know, is yet another famous Greek settlement. In addition to the archeological park (incidentally the Greek theater is where Aeschylus premiered several of his plays...wild, man), Siracusa features one of the lovliest piazzas we've seen so far. Smooth, white stone covers the piazza which is surrounded by a very cool duomo (built on and incorporating part of the ancient Temple of Athena...the columns are used to hold the church's roof up!) and a building or two across the piazza characterized by a slight curved front. Full of tourists, like us, unfortunately, but pleasant nonetheless.

We retreated midday to a restaurant next to our hotel (this one recommended by our reliable hotel clerk) and I had a great clam and spaghetti dish, and Leslie a lovely seafood risotto (full of octopus arms, to his displeasure). The food was simple but perfect. We are finally hitting something of a food stride! Tonight we are tempted to return to our restaurant of the first day, the one with the vaulted ceiling and the magnificent risotto marinara. We are gun shy about trying anything else, except perhaps another rice ball.

This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours in the neighborhood laundry, in yet another Italian experience. No one in a rush, and no one especially concerned about my wet clothes sitting and waiting for 45 minutes for a dryer while the operators chatted with friends in the street. It all got done eventually.

After coffee and bread and cheese on the roof, we depart tomorrow, early perhaps, for Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples! Ciao.

Tiny, frightening Taormina

After 8 hours of uneventful driving on the Autostrade (Leslie almost killing only two people), including a pleasant hop across the water to Sicily, we arrived in Taormina last night expecting to quickly find and check into the hotel. Instead, we spent an hour and a half caught in horribly narrow, contorted, unlabeled, and did I say narrow, streets. We were quickly lost, and getting loster by the second. It was very touchy-feely driving, as all of the streets are really one lane roads, on which two cars try to pass, with cars parked on the side. And then there are pedestrians and scooters streaming past, that you hopefully avoid (we feel fairly certain we maimed no one in Taormina). Although we are men (sort of), we stopped to ask for directions, which meant parking the car on a side street at something like a 45 degree angle, while I climbed out of the Spritz, headed up some slippery stones, past a boy disembarking himself and his doggy from his Vespa, and begged directions from a hotel clerk. In broken English, she saved us. In another 45 minutes of horrible driving, the car heaving and smelling like it was on fire, we found our hotel, the Fiorita.

It is a weird place, a villa house, decorated in Italian modern (think 1967), that climbs up the side of the mountain. The view from our room is spectacular, however, as we have a shot all the way up the northern coast. The cable car ride to the beach way, way below is across the street (which we plan to 'do' this afternoon).

We needed drinks badly, so we headed out for dinner (mediocre...what is it with the cuts of meat in Italy...fatty, gristly...although because a thumb size piece of gristle lodged in my teeth, I was able to enjoy my dinner long into the night). (More to follow in another post about the state of Italian food, or our utter inability to find anything spectacular). After dinner, we ran into two Irish gals, teachers both, who we tried to (and clearly did) impress with our knowledge of Irish literature and drinking songs. For some reason, they challenged me on my Irishness despite the roundness of my head, my proclivity to drink and bullshit, and my mother's maiden name (McLaffon, which they said sounded Scottish. Scottish, my ass). Good chat and good laughs well into the night (accompanied by the furrowed brow of the proprietor who found us irritating...imagine that).

To the Greek amphitheater this morning (after a very tortured parking situation was remedied), and onto dinner with the Irish tonight...if we can find the restaurant (a bargain restaurant frequented by Woody Allen, it is said. Wheee. My goal is to finally eat a fried rice ball and to avoid gristle.

To Siracusa tomorrow.

Disaster averted...

So we're heading out to B.F.E. to pick up the vehicle Leslie allegedly rented. We have to take the funicular up the hill, to the subway, and the subway to some outlying suburb (Capidimonte something or other), where we exit the train station, ask the attendant where in the hell we should head now. He hooks us up with a chatty lady in a yellow dress who tells us to get on the bus with her and she will guide us (at least that's what we think is happening). The bus takes off, we go a few blocks, and she tells us to get off the bus, and she leads the way. We step off the bus, stand there a minute, and the bus driver starts yelling...something like 'what the hell are you thinking?'...so we get back on the bus with the lady in yellow, go a few blocks more, and disembark once again. She points to the street nearby, and we stroll a few blocks to find our car rental place, incredibly.

We present ourselves and our papers and the sweet girl behind the counter asks Leslie, 'may I see your driver's license?' But, you see, Leslie does not have his drivers license, even though he is renting a car and planning to drive it that very day. He has left it in his hotel room, for some reason (I've got some theories). This means we will have to retrace our labored steps back to Pinto Storey Hotel on the other side of town, without the help of the yellow lady. Alas, the sweet counter girl is cleverer than the two panicked and bitter fools, and calls the hotel to ask the clerk to locate Leslie's drivers license, make a copy, and fax it to her. The clerk does so..but the fax is illegible. All the while, I feel the clock ticking, and the possibility of my seeing Pompeii and Herculaneum sliding away...Leslie asks, 'Are you mad?' 'No,' I tell him, 'just disappointed' and I grit my teeth.

The clerk steps up and decides to hail a taxi and send the legible copy of the drivers license to us in B.F.E. So we wait another 45 minutes, and he appears. He shouts a little bit about the fare (he thinks we are challenging it but we're just trying to figure out how much the damned fare is). We pay him 14 Euro and soon we are on our way.

Our 'car' is a Toyota something or other, with four doors and not much else. It has, in name only, an air conditioner. And we're not sure which gear is which, but we have decided after trial and error to drive in 'E'. Only, we get lost constantly in Naples trying to find the Autostrade (the highway). Eventually, we run blindly into it and head out of town. Leslie is giddy that we have survived the first 45 minutes of driving with only one mirror hit.

We soon (sooner than we thought it would be) find Pompeii. In the course of the first 35 seconds of being there, we are coerced into a parking space in front of a restaurant and sold a guide book and told we should not eat in Pompeii but at the restaurant, as it is cheaper. Oy vay.

Pompeii is sprawling, and hot, but spectacular. We take the audio tour and even though most of the commentary does not quite match up with the physical layout (he says turn left, and there is no left), we hit what we think are the high points, including the House of the Fawn (mentioned in Leslie's first Latin textbook), which contained the original of the mosaic we saw in the Archeol. Museum of Alexander defeating Darius, House of the Tragic Poet (with a doggy mosaic in the doorway), the baths, which were very nicely preserved, featuring great mosaics (you gotta love those bathhouse terms: the frigiderium, the calidarium...oh, and every house features an impluvium in the foyer, which is a shallow pool to catch the rainwater from a hole in the roof) and, on more grisly note, a few plaster casts of 'bodies' of Pompeiians who died when Vesuvio blew and pelted poor Pompeii with ash, rocks, lava, and fire. Leslie also insisted that we visit the whorehouse to see the erotic graphics (the stone beds, by the way, were incredibly short...were they that much shorter, or were they more supple and creative?) Vesuvio, incidentally, looms over everything, keeping an eye on things.

Exhausted and hot, we nevertheless headed to Herculano (Leslie kept asking, 'Do you really want to go?'). But not before a quick lunch, worthy of comment: it is amazing what these people do with a simple sandwich. A hunk of good french bread (hard enough to cut your palate), a thin, thin slice of salami, a slab of mozarrela, a tomato or two, and you're in heaven). And it's cheap.

Herculano is odd because it sits in the middle of town. You hurl your Toyota Spritz or whatever it is off the Autostrade, take a curve, and hit a stop light, behind which sits an arch that reads Herculaneum. It sits next to drug stores, cafes, tabacco shops...you head inside, and spread out beneath your feet are the ruins, which you reach by walking down an incline and crossing over a pit of 50=60 feet to the city proper. Herculaneum was found in the 1700s by some guy who bought an estate nearby, and they've been digging at it ever since. It was covered by mud when Vesuvio blew, so it is better preserved than Pompeii. The street level is about 40 feet blow today's streets, so it is clear that it took a LOT of digging. Lots of walls remain, and many roofs, along with incredibly ornate interiors (although Herculaneum's baths did not begin to compare with Pompeii's in glamour terms...take that Herculaneum). It's too much to take in, really, particularly if you're 50 years old, your feet hurt, and your ass is dragging (it didn't help that I tripped on a rock left by some damned ancient, and fell over it and into a fence, where I hit my bad shoulder...Leslie helped save my camera, however).

Leslie and I had a question for the experts out there (Eric?): how does an ancient city get covered up by 30 or 40 feet of dirt? (Herculaneum got covered by volcanic mud...that's easy. But what about Ancient Rome, for example.) Anyone?

We made it back to our hotel, incredibly, without incident. Leslie was even giddier at that point, very proud of himself and his driving abilities. We are off down the coast and across the ferry and into Sicily, to Taormina, today!

A few random observations before I go:

Naples is cheaper than Roma, which I hope signals a trend as we head south. I will admit to having spent $65 on cokes, wine, and ice cream at the Piazza Navona (of course you're paying for the fact of being in and getting to watch the Piazza). Our dinner last night (including wine and meat!) was only 40 Euro.

We thought we were not that obvious, but it has become clear that we are perceived readily as Americans. (My blue baseball cap doesn't help.) Not that that's bad. One guy in Rome told us how great America was...yeah, sometimes. But we want to be regarded as citizens of the world, dammit.

I miss my beloved Tony (my Vespa). The constant stream of scooters only makes my pain worse.

A German man was either flirting with me from a table across the piazza or he couldn't believe how big my head is. Leslie and I couldn't decide.

And, Kelly, I have tried to get Leslie to write or comment, but as you may know he has the attention span of a gnat, and twitches to get away from the computer. I will try again.

Crazy Naples

Took the train to Naples this morning (about an hour and a half trip). The train ride was uneventful, the ride to the hotel in the taxi was, well, exhilarating is putting it nicely. I've not seen driving, walking, and scooting like this (not even in Hanoi rush hour). I would say that it is organic, except that it doesn't seem to have any order or form to it. What was a two lane street only seconds ago is now a one way highway. And scooters, as much as I love them, are insane here...they never stop, and barely hesitate...it is scoot or die for these people. So if the traffic in the road stops for seconds, the scooters jump the curb and take to the sidewalks. To cross the street on foot requires a literal leap of faith, and once you cross, you'd better commit to the process and continue or they will kill you. Leslie is sweating having to drive the rental car tomorrow...I'm tossing all cares to the wind. Remember, if I pass that my sister Jill gets my shoes.

Naples is unlike Rome in many ways, in addition to the driving. It is dirtier, somehow more dense, louder, but also livelier. A walk at dusk through the ancient part of the city, and you're bombarded by people, shouting, smells of dinner cooking, etc. Great stuff. Until you look for a restaurant. We began encountering this problem in Rome...and now here. After a drink in the early evening, we search for eats. We walk, we ask directions to where the restaurants are, and we walk. Blocks go by and all we find are gelato stands (you can eat only so much ice cream), or snack bars. The restaurants that feed the people of Naples seem to be in hiding. We've asked for the password, or the secret passage, without much success. Finally, tonight, a woman whose dog I was admiring offered (incidentally the dogs here do not understand English) to help. She suggested a restaurant nearby that was incredibly well hidden. We found it however, and it was delightful (inside was a tree covered garden...with lemons in the trees). We've marked in on our map so we can find it again. Damn you Naples! We will not be defeated!

Made our way in the afternoon by subway to the Archeological Museum. It is a big and grand building, but the collection is a little hit and miss. Some of the signs are in English, but most not, and there does not seem to be much order to the situation. So the professor and I did our best to translate. The great thing about this museum is that they've taken some of the good stuff found at Pompeii and removed it for safekeeping and easy viewing. Incredible wall and floor mosaics recovered from the volcanic ruins, including one of Alexander doing some conquering that Leslie had seen prints of all of his life. Lots of pottery and stuff, and in one corner they've set off a section of erotic finds from Pompeii including some fairly disquieting phalluses and such (is that the plural of phallus or is it phalli?). Anyway, Leslie gives the museum two stars!

Oh and another thing I've noticed: the public soundtrack of Naples (music you hear in taxis and restaurants) is pretty much stuck in the 80s. We heard Groove is in the Heart several times tonight, along with lots of Donna Summer and the Pointer Sisters if you can imagine. Also, the pigeons are very forward here. We were sitting in a cafe today when a gang of street pigeons suddenly descended on a nearby table, attacking the snacks and chasing off the two customers. They didn't care that people were swatting at them...they were having those potato chips if they had to die for them. I live in a pigeon burdened city, but lord they ain't fighters like these.

Tomorrow we try to find the car that Leslie rented (apparently we have to retrieve it from B.F.E.). Then onto to Herculaneum and Pompeii to see what was left from Vesuvio's big blow. Oh, my other goal is to eat a fried rice ball tomorrow, too. So there.

One more thing about the Villa Borghese...

among the many Bernini statues in the collection is one standout. It's Apollo seizing Danae (sp?), a nymph. The story goes that Apollo, finding this particular nymph comely, seizes her nakedness...she cries out to her father, the river god, and he rescues her by turning her into a tree. Bernini captures the instant the transformation begins. So you see roots beginning to grow from her toes and fingers, and shoots with leaves sprouting from her back, bark growing up her midsection, all in white marble. What is truly incredible, especially for hacks like us, is that the leaves are individually carved, delicate little slivers, just like real leaves...only we were told that when they cleaned and restored the statute, they found that you could flick the leaves and they would ring out like crystal. Anyway, we thought it was real good.

On to Naples today by train.