Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Italia 2023. Day 29 - The perfect tourist experience in Venice. The last day.

I hate it when the weather forecast is correct. They had forecasted a 20% chance of rain by 10 am, and it arrived like clockwork. Fortunately I was carrying my umbrella with me, so besides slightly damp feet I was able to ignore the inclement weather.

But to start at the beginning, come 9 am I was out there exploring the labyrinth of calles and campos, enjoying the city as it came to life (Venetians are not early risers). There is a sense of excitement as you emerge from a corridor no wider than you shoulders into a campo with an old church on one side, a small bar on the other, and a shop that offers whimsical masks for carnival. I think I could have done that all day and be extremely happy with my visit to Venice. But then it started raining and I thought it might be a good idea to retire to a museum. I ended visiting several, two of which were palazzos in the grand scale: Palazzo Grimani and Casa d'Oro. The former was built buy one of the Doges (the rulers of the Serene Republic) and without being "royal" was a mighty nice place loaded with statues and paintings. One of the most distinctive ornaments were rectangular, oval, or diamond-shaped slabs of the most beautiful rocks the Doge could get his hands on, which were embedded on the walls as if they were paintings (clear sign that the Doge was a rock collector and would have had a happy life as a geologist). The Casa d'Oro was a rich palazzo built along the Gran Canal, and the owner must have had a similar rock collecting hobby because the floor of the ground floor is a fabulous mosaic of the rarest rocks. This floor is famous because it gets inundated during acqua alta and light reflections on the thin layer of water create an incredible display (I saw it in a video at the museum). 

That reminds me, the Venetian structures along the canals do not have a lot of wiggle room to accommodate a storm surge plus a high spring tide, so for the time being Venice has built an impressive set of "gates" on the entrance of the laguna that are lifted when there is a risk of acqua alta.

Under a steady rain I walked along Riva degli Schiavoni to the Naval History Museum. I was hoping for a nicely laid exposition of the maritime power of Venice but was disappointed. The museum has wonderful examples of cannons and other weapons, and very cool models of all sorts of galley ships, war ships, and cruise ships, but the whole collection does not tell a coherent story.

Having had enough of museums for the time being, I jumped on a vaporetto and headed for Lido, one of the three long barrier islands that partially block the mouth of the laguna. I imagined it would be something like Murano, and almost died of fright (literally and figuratively) when a big bus rumbled past the disembarkation dock. There are cars here! Not only that, but there are wide boulevards imported directly from Paris! turns out that the Lido of Venezia is a top European tourist destination, where people come to enjoy the sun (not today), the sandy beach, and the good life in swanky hotels and B&Bs that one finds all over the place.

Back in the vaporetto, I headed for the Galleria de la Academia, one of the well-known museums of Europe. Juan should be proud of me as I walked through one hall after another, loaded with the masterpieces of Venetian artists. I have to say, however, that there was a very limited number of themes, and all of them were religious in nature. Once you have seen the Madonna and Child represented multiple times, you start being a bit jaded and put more attention into the expressions of the main characters. In some representations everyone is so serious (it reminds me of Irvan, who doesn't like smiling when taking selfies), or the baby is too fat, or Mom has a squinty eye, or ... but I should stop this heretic musings.

By then night had fallen (at about 5 pm), so I treated myself to a walk across the Rialto Bridge and its glittering shops, the charming restaurants along the riva of the Gran Canal, and some of the bigger calles where tourists like to linger. Listening to the babel of languages around me I have come to the very non-statistical conclusion that most of the groups still walking under the night drizzle are Spaniards, who are probably just warming up for a night out in the town!

I think that is it for this particular trip. Tomorrow Thursday I will take the train to Milan, spend the night at an airport hotel, and at 6:30 am Friday morning will head back to California. All good things must come to an end, sigh.

Finis 

Italia 2023. Day 28 - Venice, the Pearl of the Adriatic

Fabiola, Bogus, and I were in Venice once, 35 years ago, as part of a pretty hard core road trip in an old VW bus. We had started in Germany, moved through Switzerland, and eventually got into Italy. Looking at the map it seemed that I could take the autostrada to Milan and from there go to Venice (a mighty long detour it seemed to me), or I could take this other road across the hills and head directly to Venice. A no brainer, right? What I did not know was that the "hills" were the Dolomites, one of the roughest mountain ranges in the Alps. So there we were, climbing, climbing, and climbing and later descending, descending, and descending through one of the scariest roads I have ever seen (actually, I have seen plenty of other scary roads, but this one is still vividly clear in my mind). Eventually we made it to Mestre, in the middle of fog as thick as pea soup, spent the night in a camping place that was closed for the winter, and the following morning we drove into Piazzale Roma, parked the bus, and walked and walked through the city until we were almost dead with exhaustion. We liked it just fine, and Faby got to chase after the pigeons in San Marcos, but we didn't have a muzzle for Bogus so we could not board the vaporetto and visit the islands. The following day we moved farther south, on what ended being an epic trip, and I made a mental note that Venice did not have much to offer to kids and dogs.

This time my good luck was back, and I arrived by train to Venezia Santa Lucia with sun, relatively pleasant temperature, and a 48-hour pass for the network of vaporettos. I have decided to treat myself for the next two days, and booked a room in a palazzo right by the Gran Canal (the room is fine but, alas, my window gives to one of the narrow calles and not to the Gran Canal). But then again, I didn't come this far to stay in a room, so after dropping off my backpack I took to the calles on my way to the vaporetto station. Venice is just about perfect right now, with enough tourists to make it lively, but not so many that they dilute the life of this most peculiar city. Locals (mostly elderly ladies it seems) are going on about their business, and the tourist-traps are open and full of color. It is a pleasure to move through the maze of walkways and bridges, and even though I have always been boastful of my sense of direction I have to confess I veered several points off the compass in reaching my destination. 

The vaporettos have different stations, and you need to know what you are doing before you line up for boarding (there might be as many as four boarding platforms at any given station), but once you figure out the trick the ride is a perfect joy. The laguna is crisscrossed by lanes marked by poles, which to the uninitiated seem like obstacles placed on the path of dozens of small vessels moving at high speed from one place to the other. 

My first stop was on the small island of Burano, famous for its lace. I imagined a small fishing village, but it is in fact developed with a dense number of colorful tiny houses (just about what you would expect if Disney had created a small version of Venice). I was hoping I would find a quaint trattoria where I could have a simple grilled fish, but was disappointed and had to satisfy myself with a simple lunch of crackers and cheese, at the base of The Leaning Tower of Burano.

My second stop was Murano, famous for its many glass factories and beautiful art pieces made of glass. My parents treasured a glass centerpiece someone had given them as a wedding gift, and I believe it was made in Murano. Murano is very charming, and could again be a small version of Venice but more genuine than Burano. There is the added bonus that walking through the glass shops is like visiting a number of small art galleries, each with fabulous original pieces created by master glassblowers.

One of the challenges facing the tourist is the paucity of accessible toilette facilities. Unlike in the United States, here you pay to use the bathroom (50 cents, one euro, or 1.50 euros), and such facilities are often found near the transportation hubs. Not in Venice and its surroundings, however. The city supports twelve such facilities over the whole city, and they are hidden pretty well. The other option is to stop at a bar and have a coffee or a beer, which considerably increases the cost of the bathroom run, but pretty much condemns you to repeat the ordeal an hour later. Yes, you guessed it right, I was beginning to feel the call of nature, but my tourist instincts prevailed and I took the long way back to the city, just so I could approach Piazza San Marcos from the Gran Canal. Superb!    

Italia 2023. Day 27 - Trieste, the Vienna of the Adriatic

I am back in Italy! When I got out of the basement hostel in Ljubljana I heard the sound of water on the street. Oh, no! Yes, it had rained during the night, but at least for now the clouds were holding, and when I arrived in Trieste, Italy, the sky was overcast but not menacing. Let's see how long my good luck holds.

A short 20 minutes walk brought me to my residence, in a swanky building four blocks from the waterfront. I had to wait for 20 minutes until the cleaning lady arrived, and I was able to unload my backpack and go explore the town. It is a handsome city, apparently designed by Franz Josef himself, with many squares, monumental buildings, and lots and lots of classic statues. As I walked through the streets, I was able to add to my scant knowledge of the history of the area. Trieste spreads along the horns of the most beautiful bay, a fact that was of great interest to the Romans, who first developed the town as Tergeste and made it one of their main ports in the Adriatic. There are columns and half arches everywhere, as well as a handsome Roman theater in very good state of preservation. Then the Romans lost the province to the Ottomans, it went back to the hands of Byzantium for a short while, was engulfed by the Serene Republic in the Middle Ages, and eventually came to be part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, together with Slovenia and its playmates. Think about it; Austria and Hungary are land-locked, so Trieste became their main port, and hence the attention that it got from Franz-Josef and his wife Sissi, who apparently were regular visitors to this beautiful resort. To the west, the troublesome Kingdom of Italy had its eye on this Vienna of the Adriatic, but good luck grabbing it from Austria and Hungary.

And here a minor character enters into the story: Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian of Hapsburg, who as the reagent of the province had built a charming castle, Miramare, on the west side of the bay, to serve as home to him and his charming wife Charlotte. Max was the brother of Franz-Josef, and made it very clear that he was aspiring to the Imperial throne. What to do with the troublesome fellow? Enter Franz's good buddy, Napoleon III, who came up with the hair-brained idea that they could pack Max to Mexico, to become the emperor of that far away land, and thus take him out of the picture. So Franz and Nap talked clueless Max to take the bait (and give up his aspirations to the Austrian throne) offering all possible economic and military help (of which he saw very little in the five years that followed), and Maximiliano y Carlota, emperor and empress of Mexico left their beautiful Miramare, only to face a relentless opposition war from Juarez and his generals (starting with the defeat of the French army in Puebla, on the Cinco de Mayo de 1862). Poor Max never got to see Miramare again, arrived to Mexico in the middle of turmoil in 1864, and was executed by firing squad on June 19, 1867. Carlota fared no better; in 1866, at age 26, she returned to Europe to seek support for her embattled husband, got refusals everywhere, lost her marbles, and was confined in different mental institutions until her death in 1927, at age 86. 

Back in Trieste, which was apparently very happy to belong to the Austrian-Hungarian empire, after World War I the unthinkable happened, and Trieste and Slovenia were attached to the much hated Kingdom of Italy as war reparation. Italy lost no time colonizing the regions in the 20 years that followed, but then the Nazis came and took Trieste and Slovenia for themselves, only keeping out of Venezia because Benito Mussolini and Hitler were "friends". Then World War II happens, and Trieste and its surrounding region goes to Italy, but Slovenia goes to the Soviet Union. Here you might remember that Slovenia still feels that Trieste belongs to them; in contrast, the Italians still talk of the "exodus" when Italians had to abandon their farms, houses, and shops in Slovenia when the Soviet Union took over. Clearly there are more than two sides to every story.

I completed my tour of Trieste by taking the tourist bus, looking at all the beautiful Austrian buildings, following the curve of the bay to the north past the seashore Forest of Barcola (apparently the place to come swim during the hot days of summer) and all the way to Miramare. We also visited the top of the hill where the Venetian fort of Saint Giusto overlooked and protected the port, and where the medieval Cathedral of Saint Giusto was built using as wings two existing Byzantine chapels (which no doubt accounts for it asymmetry). I later walked up the hill and was impressed by the austerity of the exterior, and by the quiet beauty of the interior.

Nice place, Trieste.

Italia 2023 (and Slovenia). Day 26 - Ljubljana (day 2)

Oh, sadness. Yesterday was a pretty, sunny day, but today it is overcast and bitterly cold. I thought I would get a walk in the great outdoors out of the way, so I headed for the Tivoli park, which merges with the mountain forest to provide tens of miles of walking paths to dog walkers. Slovenians, like Germans, dote on their dogs and you see all sorts of people walking their dogs, or bringing them into the shops and restaurants. Some even carry a little cushion or padded blanket so Fido does not have to lay on the cold floor. And just to avoid any confusion, Tivoli Park in Ljubljana should not be confused with the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. 

It was a nice, brisk walk that warmed me up quite a bit, and I could have gone for a few more miles, but I spotted an interesting building from the trail, came down from the hill to investigate, and found out it was the Modern History Museum. A couple of friendly youngsters welcomed me (I have to say that all the young people I have spoken have an excellent command of English, and are very helpful indeed), and afterward were very glad to discuss my impressions of the museum. In a few words, over the last 100 years someone from outside has wanted to lord over the closely related Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian peoples. During World War II they were invaded by the Germans, from the north, and the Italians from the west (the latter took the province of Udine, where Trieste is now located, and never gave it back, so my informants joked that when I arrive in Trieste I will still be in Slovenia). Eventually the European war ended in 1945, and the Slavic countries became a part of the Soviet Union. In 1947, as the Cold War escalated, under the direction of Marshall Josip Broz-Tito the countries of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Vojvodina (today Slovakia), created the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Tito spearheaded the notion of a non-aligned bloc, and Yugoslavia declared itself a non-Soviet republic, although still with a socialist economy, a 5-year plan, and rule by the Communist party. Slovenia was a willing participant of the Federation, but entered it as a sovereign state, which it would invoke in 1991 to justify leaving the Yugoslavian federation. 

Tito was the strong man of Yugoslavia from 1947 until his death in 1980, and I think he could be labeled a benign dictator. He was the de facto leader of the non-aligned bloc of nations, pushed hard to avoid Soviet influence in Yugoslavia, shepherded the country through the very hard years of reconstruction (the 1950's), and successfully moved the country into the prosperity of the 1960's and 1970's. When he died, however, the economy deteriorated during the 1980's, which triggered dissatisfaction with the communist party and the "planned" socialist economy (at the same time the West was mesmerizing the world with the siren-chant of the free-market economy), and eventually, in 1991, Slovenia and Croatia chose to leave the Yugoslavia Federation. The 5-year war of secession ensued (some call it the 10-year war), and in 2004 Slovenia and Croatia were accepted into the EU and became members of NATO.

A very informative visit to the Modern History Museum!

Afterward I visited a stubby Eastern Orthodox Church, beautifully decorated with Byzantine icons, saw a small part of a baptism, and listened from the distance to the brass band that had come to celebrate the event.

I spent the rest of the day visiting art museums. Modern art is still a bit of a mystery to me, but the National Gallery has some pretty paintings by the Slovenian painters of the Realism and the Impressionism, and some vast landscapes by Marko Prenhart (1860's) that very much reminded me of the work of his Mexican contemporary José María Velasco.

I wrapped my day with a visit to the Ethnographic Museum, which was an eclectic collection of artifacts from Slovenia and the Slavic culture. A particularly fascinating exhibit was a collection of nativity scenes from Krakow. This is an old tradition, where during the year folks work in their dining room tables building these complicated "cathedrals" out of cardboard, papier maché, and tin foil, with the nativity scene at its center. On the first Thursday of December they are brought to the market place for everyone to admire, and they are put in permanent display on a hall, where they remain until Epiphany. Afterward they are discarded and the families start building their following Christmas project. 

It was a very good day. 

Italia 2023 (and Slovenia). Day 25 - Ljubljana

Another easy ride with Flixbus and I entered Slovenia (even though Croatia and Slovenia are members of the EU we had to go through border passport check and customs, which is weird). The landscape has changed somehow, from craggy mountains and dense forest to a more genteel landscape of grass-covered hills with small quaint towns scattered over the slopes. Feels more like Germany than Hungary.

The capital city is Ljubljana (pronounced Liu-bliah-nah) and it occupies a star-shaped intermontane valley. The old city center wraps around a small hill, where a meander of the Ljubljanica River provided a moat on three sides. Naturally there is a castle on top of the hill, and my tourist activity for the day was to climb the hill to see the grounds, the vineyard, and the main yard of the castle. To the north of the skyline there is a tall range of snow-clad mountains (the Grintovec Range), and right below me I could see the old town, with dozens of slender Lutheran churches and more delicate architecture than that of Zagreb (either these are pre-XIX century or Franz Joseph never gave much attention to what must have been a small provincial capital). 

Today is Saturday, and I can see the unmistakable signs of a city that has stopped working and is ready to party. The pubs will be lively tonight, but I forecast that tomorrow there will be many penitents repenting at church and little happening in the streets.

I am staying at the Dragon's Dream Hostel, which has the distinction of using "capsules" to host its guests. I have been in a capsule hotel before, in Sidney, so I was ready to find my berth carved out of the wall, like in a Roman catacomb. Not quite. It is more like a cabinet room in a train, so I have a bit of room to stand, and a small cabinet to put my clothes. There are communal showers, but they are more like six small bathrooms, where you have privacy to use the WC and the shower. 

The "kitchen" is a sink and a microwave, but as people come and go they leave supplies behind, so there is coffee, sugar, and all sorts of noodles. I should add that everything is finished in gleaming light wood, and is spotlessly clean. Best of all, the young woman who checked me in was super friendly and gave me all sorts of good info about how to move using the buses. They are more expensive than the trams in Zagreb (1.30 euro for the bus vs. 80 cents for the tram), and you need to have a card to which you can add money (like the Clipper card in BART) but my young friend was happy to lend me the hostel card, to which I added 5 euros at the machine by the bus stop (later I found out I had been lucky, because very few bus stops have such machine). Cards and QR codes are fine, but if you don't know these little things you can get really stuck.

Italia 2023 (and Croatia). Day 24 - Zagreb (day 2)

Today was a good, active day, although it was cold. Particularly on corridors, or stepping out of a room, the sudden cold wind penetrated to the bone.

I took my trusty tram to the center of town, with the plan of taking the tourist bus at 10 am. But I got there at 9:15 am, so I had to walk briskly around the cathedral not to be turned into an ice statue. Zagreb has a grand cathedral, but with the years it had been neglected, and in the last couple of years it has been in reconstruction (the same is true for many of the museums and public buildings, so either they do the maintenance over the winter months, or they just got a whole bunch of EU money to beautify the city). Reconstruction means that the cathedral was closed to visitors, but I spent some interesting time looking at the blocks they took out of the twin spirals, half original work and half reconstructed volutes and gargoyles. It is like a giant Lego puzzle!

The Hop-on Hop-off was a small bus, and I was the only tourist on board. It is also not a very long route, so I decided to ride the whole circuit, making suitable noises of admiration as the driver pointed to the different worthy sights. I disappointed him, however, because I was not inspired to take photographs and selfies along the route. The city center is comparatively small, and one pass with the tourist bus was enough to give me feeling for the geography of the place. There is basically an uptown, where the cathedral and the government house are located, and a downtown, where the big public buildings are located.

Staring with the uptown, across the plaza from the cathedral is the market, which includes the open market stalls on top, and the better established shops in the basement. Walking through the stalls I truly felt I was in Europe, with lots of elderly ladies pulling on the ubiquitous wheeled market baskets. Folks here like to go to the market and buy a few potatoes here, a cauliflower there, a slice of cheese at the diary shop, and a rack of lamb at the butchers, which makes for a busy and quite colorful vignette of old Zagreb life. 

Climbing a long street lined with bakeries (here you can live out of bakery goods for several days at a stretch) and curious shops I got back to the Government House and the Parliament House, and in the plaza between them found a church with a beautiful mosaic roof (which I couldn't approach because the whole area is barred by the security police). Now that I was on top I walked in the garden that overlooks the city, where a statue honoring an old gentleman attracted my attention. It was the monument to Andreja Mohorovičić, Geophysicist (I hope some of my students will recognize the name of the man who identified the crust/mantle transition in seismic refraction records ("the Moho")).

In the downtown area one can find the imposing buildings of the Academy of Arts and Sciences (closed for renovation), the Palace of Fine Arts (closed for renovation), the Opera House (closed for renovation), and any number of museums (also closed for renovation). The very fine Hotel Esplanade, by the main train station, was built in record time in the early 20th century, to attend to the needs of the passengers of the luxurious Orient Express, which went from Paris to Constantinople (via Zagreb).

Eventually I reached saturation from ancient buildings I could not visit, so I took the tram to the east side of the city, to walk in Maksimir Park, a forested space that functions like Chapultepec for Mexico City or the Jardin de Plants for Paris. It has several artificial lakes (now frozen), a small zoo, and children playgrounds, but mostly it has many paths through the forest for dogs to run, youngsters to jog, and older folks to have a nice walk. It is a very peaceful place. 

Italia 2023 (and Croatia). Day 23 - Zagreb

Well, I was out of form yesterday, because I think the solitude of an empty tourist area is getting on my nerves. But everything is changing today, because I am going into the country to the capital, Zagreb. I would imagine folks there live their normal lives 365 days a year, so it is sure to be lively. But first we need to get over the coast ranges, which from the coast look tall and forbidding. The highest peaks are snow-clad and as jagged as the Alps. As we drove through them the temperature plummeted to -5 degrees C and a thin dusting of snow covered the forest. Oh dear, I hope I am not going to freeze myself. 

The mountains are all one could have expected from fairy tales about the impenetrable Bohemian forests, including wolves and bears, but I am sure that in the spring they become glorious. Yesterday I finally found the poorly preserved outline of an ammonite, so I am now pretty confident that all the rocks exposed around me are Mesozoic.

The bus made a short stop at a town called Gospić ... now, where have I heard that name ... Gospić ... aha! I have it, this is where Nikola Tesla, the famous inventor and electrical engineer was born! A quick Google search confirmed that he was born in Simijan, municipality of Gospić, but they call him Serbian, whereas we are in Croatia (maybe his parents were from Serbia), although at the time all Croatia was part of the Austrian empire. I further learnt that there is a Nikola Tesla Technical Museum in Zagreb, so now I know how I am going to spend the afternoon.

Zagreb is a grand capital city, with many public buildings in the best Vienna style, and quite a few Vienna-style gardens and private residences. Then again, there is also a great number of buildings done in the 1940's style, not quite Soviet in severity, but one big box after another. As it turns out, my B&B is in one of these buildings, and to my great surprise I found that the façade "hides" an inner courtyard, where a veritable pueblito exists, with small houses, gardens, and shacks. Pretty cool place to spend a couple of nights.

I had walked from the bus station to my lodgings, about half an hour, all the time studying the public tram system. Seems very efficient, so I am going to try it to get to the Tesla Museum. As easy as "kiss my hand"! You can buy the ticket from the conductor (80 cents of an euro) and, like the metro, the tram has fixed stops so you can wait until your stop comes and there you are. My tram was the number 4, which is also the tram I will take to get back to the bus station.

The museum was fine, but there was only a small section devoted to Tesla and his work (a lot of which happened in the United States). The rest of the museum emphasized the development of technology, from the plow to the space age. Nice collections of old cars, motorcycles, and small airplanes, as well as behemoth steam engines and water turbines. From the slide rule to mechanical calculators to computers of all vintages. The only thing is that this is a strict see-but-don't-touch museum, and thus not much fun to kids. There was a section on geology (I was right about the Mesozoic age of the rocks) and mining (lots of mineral resources in the inaccessible mountains), and they have a replica of a lead-zinc mine in the basement (reminded me of the mine in the Bochum museum). They did a good job at reproducing different types of tunneling and shoring techniques, but our guide herded us through at a clip that didn't allow for careful inspection.

From there we were invited to go to the Tesla exhibit, where they re-enacted some of Tesla's high-voltage demonstrations. They were "thunderous" if you will excuse the pun. It put a smile to my lips!