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!

Italia 2023 (and Croatia). Day 22 - Ugljan Island

My visit to one of the Croatian islands worked so well a couple of days ago that I decided to repeat the experience. For little money I took the boat from Zadar to Ugljan Island at mid morning, arrived in the town of Preko, and promptly jumped into the bus to extreme north end of the island at Muline. I don't know I have much to say, except that I took a lovely walk along the shore, marveling at the clarity of the water. I am sure there are some attractive reefs all around the island, and very good snorkeling, although the water in the winter is too cold for Nemo and all his friends. Clearly this is a very important tourist destination, but the beaches are too stony for my liking. It was a lonely walk, but I was enchanted by the occasional spray of rosemary along the path.

Eventually I came back to Preko, which for a ghost town is pretty nice. Everywhere I see signs of infrastructure work to develop nice promenades and bike paths, and the boarded restaurants promise delicious seafood. I must confess that this has not been a gastronomic trip, because my denture has been giving me trouble, but I keep collecting good ideas for future dishes I will try once I get back home.

Italia 2023 (and Croatia). Day 21 - Zadar

A glorious day! The sky is deep blue and the sun shines brightly (although the chilly wind is still blowing in full force), so it is a perfect day to ride up the coast the 150 km between Split and Zadar. This is a particularly lovely stretch of the Dalmatian coast, with plenty of small vacation hamlets, marinas, and lots of sailboats (all tightly shut for the winter). This reminds me that the island that I visited yesterday is a bicycling paradise, with all sorts of routes around and over the island. The same is true for the coast I am following today; I think they need to invent "The Route of the Adriatic" and compete with the Camino de Santiago or the Florida Keys for "pilgrims".

Kept seeing the remains of tumuli, platforms, and ancient walls (now piles of limestone rubble) scattered all over the hills. I really should read more about Dalmatian archaeology, and normally I would learn that by visiting the local museums. They are good museums, and most of them have entries in both Croatian and English, but I am having difficulties navigating between the different museums because I am on foot, depend on public transportation, and the street signs are not very informative.

Zadar is very beautiful, in both its old and new portions. The commercial part of new Zadar is built around two bays that have been highly modified by extensive keys where a fabulous number of yachts are moored. Ah, to be a millionaire! The many commercial buildings look like corporate headquarters. But I am going to leave the visit to the new city until tomorrow, because today I was busy navigating the old city, which is in an "island" that separates the two bays. It is a fortified city, and for once I booked a room right in the middle of it. I have been spoiled by the fact that over the last few days I have had apartment buildings for my own, but I have to say my blinding white single room is very nice and roomy (and after I struggled with a hidden key switch I managed to get the AC going and warm it up). Once I was settled I went out exploring, got lost between narrow alleys and small plazas, but eventually made it to the east waterfront, which was recently renovated and is as fine a promenade as you could wish. Toward the end of the "island" there is a set of stairs that go down to the water, and a weird "water organ" that creates an unearthly music as the waves lap unto the steps. On the platform behind this "water organ" there is a model of the Solar System, embedded on the step stones of the promenade (but the Sun is way too small), so you can enjoy a bit of space travel as you enjoy the sunset.

But then again, as soon as the Sun sets down the temperature drops like a stone and it was time to hurry back to my warm room.   

Italia 2023 (and Croatia). Day 20 - Brac Island

I was afraid that I was going to go through Croatia without getting a chance to visit one of its islands, so I was delighted when my host here in Split assured me that it was very easy to take the ferry to Brac Island, the big island south of Split, and take a bus ride from its northern main town (Supetar) to its southern most famous tourist resort cluster (Bol). So I left home early, and braving a strong and very cold wind took the bus to the port, hoping that the wind would abate somehow so the ferry would not be shut down due to inclement weather. It was not, and with a lively swell we departed on the one hour trip across the intervening strait. It is a big ferry, so the rocking of the boat was not bad, but from time to time a thunderous clap told about a rogue wave that had crashed against the hull.

Supetar is a nice looking town, but the wind was keeping people indoors and after walking a few streets in solitude I turned around and retreated into the shelter of the bus to Bol. The island, as I had surmised, is a pile of tightly folded limestones (or calcareous schists) and clayey marls (or calcareous slates) that form a prominent ridge that rises precipitously  above the surrounding sea. The steep slopes are dotted with sheep and goats, and lots and lots of piles of broken limestone; these puzzled me for a long while and I eventually concluded that they were the remains of ancient pens and shepherds' huts that over the centuries have degraded into indistinct piles of rubble. The labor that most have gone into building those pens, with stone walls that were at least a meter wide, must have been monumental! Once the bus reached the top of the island the land use changed to the keeping of olive trees, and to quarries where slabs of the calcareous schist were sawed for use as dimension stone, and slabs of calcareous slate were made ready for use as roof shingles.

After plunging down to the south coast of the island we reached the town of Bol, which in the spring and summer must be the mecca of tourism in the Adriatic. Lots and lots of beautiful and expensive looking villas (all boarded for the winter), hotels and restaurants (all closed for the winter), and the promise of boat trips, quad rentals, and infinite tons of fun (but not during the winter). All in all I once again had the feeling that I was last man standing in a world that had been wiped out by the freezing wind. But then again, I had all that coastal forest and shingle beaches all for myself.

And that is it for the day. I came back the same way, stopped at the supermarket to buy dinner for tonight, and in the warmth of my cozy apartment will get ready for tomorrow's trip to Zadar.

Italia 2023 (and Croatia). Day 19 - Dubrovnik to Split

I spent the fist half of the day traveling the 200 km from Dubrovnik to Split, most of them along the spectacular Dalmatian coast. All of it is formed by folded and faulted limestones, so in some cases it felt like I was going through the mountains of Mexico's Sierra Madre Oriental (with the added bonus that this is a much more temperate climate and you have stunning views of the sea and the Croatian Islands). Looking at the coast on a map or in Google Earth you might think that the islands are parallel sand banks, as you might expect in a tide-dominated delta, but you would be wrong (as I was), the "flowing" shape of the islands are simply the plan view of enormous folds, enhanced by the differential dissolution of some of the limestone units.

The delta of the Neretva River near Ploce deserves some mention, because of the extensive agricultural development, and because of the use of an ag strategy I have only seen in the coastal plain of northern Colombia: The water table is too shallow for ag production, so they have excavated extensive drainage canals, and with the excavated dirt they have built broad "levees" between the drainage ditches where cultivation takes place. During the rainy season the excess water is stored in the drainage ditches, and over the dry season the ditches passively "irrigate" the intervening plots of ag land. Take a look around Ploce using Google Earth.

On first blush Split looks a bit dingy, particularly when compared with Dubrovnik. The living area is dominated by tall condominium buildings (of the Yugoslav era?) instead of pretty villas. Still, the old town is pretty interesting, as it is centered on the vast palace of the Roman emperor Diocletian, who ruled from 284 AD until his abdication in 305 AD. Diocletian is famous for two things: First, he engineered the splitting of the empire into a western half and an eastern half, and conducted one of the most bitter prosecutions of the Christians (ironically, his successor Constantin I converted to Christianism, and made it the official state religion). Anyway, Diocletian was born in Split, and decided to build his summer palace right here. The palace has a simple square footprint, but is 250 m on each side, and had three stories. The bottom one was the basement, where olive oil and wine were processed, the second floor was the administrative and military center of the empire, and the third was divided between the rooms of the imperial family and those of the military retinue of the emperor. When you look at it today you can see spots of splendor here and there, but the whole of the building was incorporated into the Medieval city of the Serene Republic, so in some instances it is difficult to say where one ends and the other begins.

For the second half of the afternoon I went for a long walk along the Marjan Woods, west of the old city, which might be the equivalent of Chapultepec in Mexico City or Central Park in New York. Everyone was there, jogging, power walking while chatting with friends, taking the kids for a bike ride, or walking the dog (I actually saw my first Dalmatian in the Dalmatian coast!). I should add that today is Sunday, and folks here take the Sunday rest very seriously, which makes it very hard on the tourist because there are no stores open! At the brink of dying from starvation I found a Kebab shop where I could get a gyros, and a bakery where I bought a couple of pastries for breakfast tomorrow morning.

My plan tomorrow is to take the ferry to the island of Supetar.

Italia 2023 (and Croatia). Day 18 - Dubrovnik (Day 2)

Before telling what little there is to tell for today, let me make a couple of comments I forgot yesterday: First, the narrow alleys of Dubrovnik were where some of the scenes of Game of Thrones were filmed! I have not seen Game of Thrones myself, but now I have a keen interest to watch it and see if I recognize anything. Movie night anyone?

Second, the light gray to cream-colored limestone that was used for construction gives the Old City a particularly clean and polished aspect, but it was in fact severely damaged during the 1991 attacks of the Bosnian army, during the 1991-1995 war of secession. If I understand the matter correctly, when Yugoslavia was let go from the Soviet Union in 1989, there was a short attempt at keeping it together as a communist country, but Croatia and Slovenia quickly broke ranks and decided that they were going to be their own countries. Bosnia and Montenegro got on their high horse and decided that they were going to fight the separatists to stop them from leaving. The resulting war was particularly gruesome, and the Old City was shelled, walls were shattered, and fires started throughout gutting many residences. Croatia and Slovenia prevailed, and now, 25 years later, there is little to see of the damage caused (although from the city wall I could see a few remnants of inner walls and abandoned inner courtyards). Still, once you know what happened, photographic displays inside the Old City and commemorative murals in the new city remind of the war years.   

On a different note, today was a drizzly day, which I thought was a poor excuse for the late buses, little people milling around, and shops looking closed and forlorn. I did my best to ride the buses and explore the most remote corners of the new city, but had the uneasy feeling that I was missing something when Bus 17 failed to appear whatsoever. Looking at the printed schedule I saw that on Saturdays (today is Saturday) there should have been a bus, but there was no bus on Sundays or Holidays. "Ding!" went my brain: Today is January 6, Epiphany, which is a Holiday here!

So, Feliz Día de Los Reyes to you all, and particularly to my dear Ronnie, who I can imagine waking up to yet another round of Holiday presents.  

Italia 2023 (and Croatia). Day 17 - Dubrovnik

What a difference does it make to wake up to a dry, partially sunny day! I am excited to explore Dubrovnik, although I have to readjust my thinking about how I am going to do this. The first consideration will have to go toward the steep slopes over which the city has sprawled. Everybody here must have a great view of the Adriatic, because everyone is perched well above the adjacent property! You have to be a mountaineer to take a stroll through the town. And then again the coast has deep embayments, so it is not easy to go from one part of town to the other. Aha! Enter the local bus. The best deal is to go back to the Central Bus Station, and buy a local bus pass for 5 euros and 31 cents (Really? Why not just 5 euros, or 5.50 euros?) for 24 hours, and then you can ride the local bus network at your heart's content.

Now that I have wheels, the first order of business given that I have a nice day ahead of me is to visit the Old City. There is a lot of history and geomorphology packed in here, so let me think what is the best way to start ... Let me start with the geology. The old Yugoslavia was the poster child of karstic geology, or the many weird landforms that develop when you have dense limestones (caves, underground rivers, sink holes, and elongated peninsulas and islands formed by prominent "ribs" of limestone). One such peninsula was present at the site of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik), and the Serene Republic of Venice decided to take it for itself to form the hub of its Dalmatian coast trade in Medieval times. It was perfect; the triangle made by Ragusa on the eastern Adriatic, Ancona in the western Adriatic, and the Mediterranean from Alexandria to Gibraltar was a neat conveyor belt for all sorts of merchandise. But then the powers of Hungary and Bohemia fought for the prize, and in the 1300's Venice was defeated (temporarily) and Ragusa was transformed into the not-so-serene Republic of Dubrovnik, which with its central city, and the Croatian Islands, became an important trading power that persisted from the 14th to the 19th centuries (good old Napoleon caused the end of the Dubrovnik Republic in 1808, and after his defeat Austria/Bohemia took over and completely messed things up).

How did I drift from geology to history? Well, the limestone peninsula happened to have two important things: An inexhaustible source of building stone (so all buildings in Dubrovnik harmonize with each other) and an impregnable cliff to protect the harbor. From its modest beginnings as a Byzantine port in the early Middle Ages, to its apogee as Ragusa in the 13th century, to its Golden Age as Dubrovnik, the sheltered embayment grew into an impregnable walled city of amazing beauty. It is one of the most beautiful Medieval cities in Europe!

I started my visit with a tour of the walls, second only to the Great Wall of China. First, buy the Old City Pass for 15 euros, with which you can also visit all the museums inside the Old City, and then take your first steep stairs to the left as you enter the city. After that you will be able to go around the city, admiring the amazing views of a medieval metropolis to your left and the Adriatic to your right. A highlight is a visit to the Maritime Museum, located in one of the corner bastions. At some point, however, you need to get down into the maze of the town, where amazingly high tenements crowd around amazingly narrow alleys, which at some time must have harbored all sorts of merchants and traders (nothing that might look like warehouses, however, so those were probably located outside of the city walls). Quite a few churches and towers, but I am not sure what was the point of monumental sacred architecture wedged in spaces so tight that they can hardly be appreciated (but then again, folks at that time did not look at their monuments through the view finder of a cell phone).

After walking around the Old City, and having visited the Maritime, Ethnography, City, and Archaeologic museums I was done. It was still mid afternoon, so I used my bus pass to the max by taking the bus to the far ends of the town. It is a beautiful town, and as I said before I am sure each of those flats have great views of the sea, but I would hate to have to haul grocery bags up 50 to 100 flights of steps!   

Italia 2023 (and Albania). Day 16 - Shkodër to Dubrovnik

You've got be kidding! Rain again? I was trying to rescue my self-pride as a tourist by going for a brisk morning walk to the lakeshore, but not under torrential rain. Rats!

So once again I waited, drank coffee, read, and basically drove myself crazy waiting for noon, when I had to walk about half a mile to the place where I was to catch the bus to Dubrovnik. Fortunately the rain eased around noon, and my walk to the Rozafa Hotel was mostly dry. Once I got there a friendly rep of the bus company checked my online ticket and told the assembled audience that the bus was coming from a town in the mountains of Eastern Albania and was a bit delayed. Instead of 1:20 pm we left at 2:30 pm, which means that instead of getting to Dubrovnik at 8:30 pm I was going to get there at 9:30 pm, and in turn get to my B&B between 10 and 10:30 pm :(

It was a good bus ride, going around Shkodër Lake through Montenegro, a small nation of which I knew absolutely nothing. Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina were at some point in time grouped as Yugoslavia, which if memory serves me right was a communist country. Yugoslavia fell apart in the late 1980's, and the 1990's were marked by infighting between the different countries. Croatia and Slovenia became members of the European Union (which likely allowed them to an amazing economic reconstruction), and by some miracle Albania managed to be both a poor country and a rapidly developing country. I expected Montenegro to be similar to Albania, but from what I could see in a drive-by it is doing quite well, with a lively tourist industry (then again, Bob has just pointed out to me that when Voyager passed by Neptune 50 years ago the images showed it to be a pretty hue of blue, but apparently that was an artifact of the way the images were processed).

Eventually we made it to Croatia, and I found it to have a mountainous coast, with small towns hanging from the steep slopes (not as luminous as the towns in Montenegro). To my dismay, my EU SIM card was not working. Great, now I need to navigate an unknown city, at 10 pm, and without the help of Google maps. Fortunately I had a map, and I can still read maps, so half an hour later I had found the very dark ally that my B&B was located at. Mind you, this is a steep city with endless flights of stairs, so it was quite a feat to have found my way there. My host doesn't speak a lick of English, but he is a big happy man, and he knew he had a guest coming, so five minutes later I was comfortably installed in my comfortable room in a shared apartment with kitchen. Perfect!

Italia 2023 (and Albania). Day 15 - Shkodër (day 2)

Mother Nature decided to take a hand on my traveling plans and sent me a very rainy day. Perfect excuse for lazing in bed in my warm bedroom (the rest of my rental apartment is freezing), a leisurely breakfast, and just sitting at the dining room table reading while the rain drummed on the living room windows. 

I did go out during a lull in the inclement weather to go visit the Rozafa Castle, a bastion that for the last 2,000 years (in one form or another) has kept sentinel on the confluence of the Buna River, which is fed by Skkodër Lake, and the Drin River that joins it from the east. Castles in ruins are a funny thing, with stairs that seem to go nowhere, remnants of walls that seem to belong to nothing in particular, and bastions whose apparent purpose was to just oversee each other. But the ancient castle builders sure had an eye for a beautiful location, and from the walls of Rozafa Castle one can enjoy spectacular views of the anastomosing rivers and the serene lake that seems to go on forever.

I couldn't completely escape the rain, and at some point sought shelter in a supermarket, while the rain came down in torrents. Standing there, waiting for the squall to go by, I fell in conversation with this old timer, Tuvik, who like me was biding his time looking at the rain. He spoke Albanian and a bit of Russian, and could understand none of the languages I speak, but we had a good time talking about Mexico, our daughters, being of an age, and how beautiful Albania is. I think he invited me to go out for a coffee, but I had to decline because I saw no coffee house nearby and didn't fancy getting all wet.

I am now pretty bored with staying at home watching videos and chilled to the bone. Tomorrow I will resume my trip by boarding the 1:20 pm bus to Dubrovnik. I am ready to move forward. 

Italia 2023 (and Albania). Day 14 - Shkodër

My exploratory tour of the Balkans has been abruptly delayed because of lack of transportation!

But let me start at the beginning. The sound of rain kept waking me up, but when I was finally ready to leave for the "bus station", at about 7 am, the heavy rain had turned into a cold drizzle. Fortunately I found a taxi right away, and when we drove into the "station" there was already a bus loading passengers for Shkodër, a northern Albanian town close to the border with Montenegro. Who organizes what bus goes to where, and at what time it departs, is a bit of a mystery, but the system has so far worked for me. I planned to make a stop at Shkodër because there is a large lake there that is designated a National Park, and because somewhere in the internet I learned that it was possible to take a bus from there to Dubrovnik, Croatia. To give me enough time to take a look around the lake I decided to spend the night there, and with the help of Booking.com found an inexpensive apartment close to downtown.

The bus ride from Tirana to Shkodër was only one and a half hours long, and I was lucky enough to meet my landlord at the small flat, where he had come to open the curtains and put a bottle of water in the small fridge. It was 9:30 am, but he was happy to check me in so I could put down my backpack and have a cup of coffee before going out to find out the time and place to take the bus to Dubrovnik tomorrow. In the best of spirits I headed to the center of town, glad to see that the clouds had parted and the sun was making its shy appearance. Experience had taught me that for lack of a proper bus station the likely point of bus departures would be a park only known to locals. So I asked around and eventually was directed to the Rozmor Hotel, where I found that yes, buses often start and end their runs on the street where the hotel is located, but no, they had no idea at what time the Dubrovnik bus departed. A friendly young woman told me that I should do a Google search for "Bus from Shkodër to Dubrovnik", which I did, only to find out that the bus does not run tomorrow Wednesday, so I will have to wait until Thursday afternoon. Rats! 

Fortunately my landlord was glad to extend my stay for another night, but I am not sure there is enough to keep me entertained in this small town. Mind you, it is a nice town, with a large mosque, a Roman Catholic church, and an Orthodox cathedral, and has a nice promenade by the river that drains out of the lake, but I have already covered those touristy places, so I am going to find little to do tomorrow Wednesday and on Thursday morning. I can always stay home and watch You Tube videos in my iPad, but the apartment is a bit chilly for comfort. Speaking of which, I am not quite sure what to make of this small flat. I think it is a bachelor flat, with a very basic kitchenette, and a definite "lived in" feeling to it (washing machine with four different types of detergents, good wi-fi, an espresso machine, and overstuffed chairs in the small living room). Whoever lives or lived here, I am glad I could have it for the two nights I will need to "shelter in place".

Italia 2023 (and Albania). Day 13 - Sarandë

Happy New Year!! Buon inizio 2024!

I tell you, the folks here in Tirana sure know how to make a racket to celebrate the New Year. The city is still wearing its Holiday lights, the people are happy, and fireworks were going on until the wee hours of the morning. Yet, when I went out at about 6 am, the streets looked relatively clean and there were no noticeable signs of craziness.

January 1 is not an easy day to get anything done, so I decided to take myself on a self-guided bus tour of the south of the country, by taking the 7:30 am bus to Sarandë. It turned out to be a rather long bus ride, four and a half hours long, but it gave me a chance of looking over the countryside. I am very favorably impressed by what I saw. Albania seems to be a reasonably prosperous country (even though the taxi driver who took me to the bus station lamented the ineffective government), with good roads and other modern infrastructure. The small towns are neat and have a sense of pride, and the country houses are gay, well maintained, and have nice gardens.

I was a bit  disappointed that half of the trip was along the edges of valleys covered with agriculture (but of course the road builders had to take maximum advantage of the flat topography) but toward the other half we crossed some pretty credible mountains formed by thick units of thinly bedded sandstones (?) (from the bus they looked very similar to the Monterey Formation) and even thicker sequences of black shales and turbidites. Everything has been folded and faulted. Not surprisingly, Albania has light oil and natural gas fields in the southwest portion of the country, which are an economic boon to such a small country.

Sarandë is a beautiful coastal city, well set to receive a significant tourist stream. Unfortunately on January 1 most things are closed (including the money exchange bureaus, so I had to pull money out of the ATM), and everybody in the town was out by the seashore drinking tiny cups of very strong coffee, having lunch, or just walking behind the happy kids. Based on my very limited observations it seems to me that Albania has more similarities with Greece than with Italy, in terms of food and national character. I misspoke when I said that the language uses the Cyrillic alphabet; they use our same alphabet so if you take your time it is possible to decipher some of the written language. There are quite a few mosques, so I assume that the majority of the folks follow Islam, but I also saw a Greek Orthodox priest walking the seashore promenade. 

Unfortunately I had to get back to Tirana, so after a hurried lunch I hopped back on the return bus and would have enjoyed a second look at this beautiful country but, alas, fell asleep for most of the return trip. By the time I got back to Tirana at 6:30 pm night had fallen, but that gave me the opportunity to once again look at the Holiday lights. 

Italia 2023 (and Albania). Day 12 - Durrës and Tirana

Like magic I went to sleep in Bari and I woke up an hour before we touched port in Durrës (or Durazzo in Italian). Once again I felt the thrill of being in a new country with a completely unknown language, and after passing the gauntlet of the many offers for a taxi ride I crossed the bridge and found myself at the "bus station" (a parking lot with an assorted cluster of buses from every make and color, clearly bought second hand from Spain, Germany, and other EU countries). I stopped at the first travel agency I saw and learnt that no, there were no tours in offer at Durrës, but if I followed the street to the left I could walk into downtown of this small city. A nice lively place where at 9 am there was already a good number of men reading the newspaper on the outdoor cafes, and well-dressed women buying trays of assorted baclava delicacies (perhaps a tradition for New Year?). 

Durrës was also an important port in antiquity, so it has remnants of a Roman amphitheater and a byzantine market place, and a small fort from the time the Serene Republic of Venice ruled the Adriatic. Outside these old remains of times past the city looks relatively modern.

After a long walk along the seaside promenade I found my way back to the "bus station" where I took a bus for Tirana. I believe that bus is the main venue of travel within the country, because it is cheap and because Albania has no railway system! Shocking, isn't it? The ride to Tirana was pretty, as we crossed over small mountain ranges formed by folded sedimentary rocks. I imagine that these ranges are but the fold-and-thrust belt of the Balkan Ranges, which are kissing cousins of the Alps and the Carpathian Mountains.

It was a sunny mid-day when we reached Tirana, which is a very pretty city in a modern kind of way. Lots of trees and parks, wide clean avenues, modern skyscrapers, and lots of people walking around (today is Sunday December 31, so the end of the year spirit pervades the air). The only issue is that the Tirana "bus station" is out on the outskirts and not close to downtown, so I had to take a taxi to get close to my B&B. This is going to be an issue for me because, as I said before, the bus seems to be the main mode of transport to move within Albania, but I will cross that bridge tomorrow. Today I very much enjoyed walking through the city, people watching and ogling the handcrafts in display at the street markets. I had to do a double take at a shop with one of those large rotisseries where in addition to the normal spit with golden brown chickens there was a spit with delicious-looking sheep heads. Seems I am not the only one who enjoys such delicacy. 

There is a street, Rruga Mine Peza, where there is an unusual concentration of travel agencies, and I walked there in the hope that one of the outfits would be offering day excursions out of Tirana and into the mountains. Alas, I was disappointed that I found none. The many travel agencies will arrange for you to visit Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, or Disneyland for what seem impossibly low prices, but none seems to be particularly interested on taking you around the country. I think I am going to have to create my own itinerary by simply taking the regular bus (of whatever color or brand it might be) first to the south to the city of Sarandë tomorrow, and then north to the laketown of Skhodër the day after tomorrow, from where I will move farther north to Croatia. Disappointing not being able to see more of this country.

Let me finish today's entry by wishing you all a Happy and Prosperous New Year. May 2024 bring good fortune to us all!

Italia 2023. Day 11 - Bari

Not much an entry because I didn't do much. I went for an early walk to buy myself a focaccia with tomato slices at the bakery kiosk, had a leisurely breakfast, and hung around my comfortable apartment in Villa Susanna until it wass time to say goodbye to my gracious hostess around 11 am. "What?" you might as well ask. The fact is that tonight I am taking the ferry across the Adriatic Sea to go from Bari (Italy) to Durrës (Albania), but not until 11 pm, and I thought that waiting forever in the cold dark at the ferry terminal entitled me to a last bit of comfort.

I took the train to Bari at 1 pm and was there by 2 pm, which allowed me ample time to walk through the city. Bari is a very chic city, and it being Saturday there were many well dressed people simply strolling through the elegant business district (for once I was conscious that my travel outfit could very well match those of the homeless). The city has a small medieval core, which has been lovingly restored, and a very nice promenade by the seashore. Outside of that, however, there was very little to do or see, so I slowly worked my way to the ferry terminal, where first you have to take the shuttle from the terminal to the ticket office, which is about 2 km away, get your ticket, and then take the same shuttle back to the ferry terminal to sit forever at the waiting area. Actually, even though the ferry departs at 11 pm the crew started the boarding process at 7 pm, so now I am on board and pretty soon I will be in bed (yes, with the memory of being a pretzel in the overnight trip from Milano Centrale to Brindisi fresh in my mind this time I booked a cabin :)

I am excited to land in Albania tomorrow morning, although I have zero knowledge about the country, its people, and its language. From what I see in the ferry they use the Cyrillic alphabet so I will have to use all my senses to navigate through it. The photos I have seen are of a pretty mountainous country, and I would like to take a tour into the country, but tomorrow is December 31, so I am not sure the travel agencies will be running tourist tours at all. 

I have bought a pre-paid SIM, so I should be able to stay connected through WhatsApp. Then again, if it doesn't work it may be three or four days before anyone hears from me. I guess that is why we call it adventure travel!  

Italia 2023. Day 10 - Lecce

Yesterday I felt I had exhausted the tourist attractions of Brindisi, so I hopped on the train for the half-hour ride to Lecce, which is located very close to the tip of the heel of the Italian Boot. The heel itself is within the province of Puglia (written Apulia in English), which is a vast carbonate platform, where the horizontal beds support a vast number of caves, provide attractive cream-color building stones, and are suited for growing grapes, olives, and artichokes. To start with the latter, all the way from Bari in the north, through Brindisi, to Lecce there are vast orchards of olive trees. Most of the trees are very attractive, with a very broad base, a gnarly trunk, and a rounded mop of leaves. The very broad base puzzles me, because it looks like they planted a cluster of young trees and then grafted them together to form a single trunk. And how do they attain that perfect rounded crown? My olive trees look like an upside down witch's broom, and I cannot see any amount of pruning adopting the round shape that thousands upon thousands of trees have here (where is Giovanni when I need him?).

The other local product are artichokes, which apparently love the calcareous soil of the Puglia. Outside of that, I can see that the maritime weather (probably accompanied by morning fog) encourages the growth of this bizarre-looking vegetable. Like for rice, I should have suspected that Italy was a big producer of artichokes, since they are such an important part of Italian cuisine. Finally there are the grapevines, which at this time of the year are but empty crosses sticking out of the ground. They sure don't look like much, but there are lots of them!

The second characteristic of the Tertiary (?) limestones, as a building stone, gives the old architecture (Greek to Roman to Medieval, to even the 19th century) and very attractive harmonious look. Styles have changed, to be sure, but towns have a soothing cream tinge to them, that blends the architecture of 3,000 years into a coherent whole. In that regard, Lecce is a much more attractive city than Brindisi (it also makes navigating through it a lot more difficult, because one corner looks very much like the other). I loved the cathedral plaza (but was too cheap to pay for visiting the cathedral itself), and the many church facades and palazzos that grace so many of the small plazas scattered through the old city, but my all time favorite was the Roman theater, with its attached museum devoted to Comedy and Tragedy. The excavated half of the Roman colliseum, right in the middle of the old city, is nice, but I think it needs a good museum to go with it.

The CastroMediano Museum, on the southwest corner of the old city is very good indeed. They chose to divide the exhibition based on the origin of the artifacts, "from the sea to the land, and from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead". "From the sea" means a fascinating explanation of the role of the Puglia as the meeting place of the maritime ancient cultures of the Mediterranean, particularly since the heel of the boot is the point of entrance to the Adriatic. On the Italian side we had the cultures of the Salento coast, but who were the ones living on the opposite shore (now Albania)? And who were the traders that used the strait to move their wares? The Phoenicians? The answer to these questions is not that straightforward, and marine archaeologists keep unravelling the history of this interesting region. The museum also holds a beautiful collection of pottery that spans the Neolithic to the Greek to the Roman to the Medieval periods (I was looking for an opportunity to swipe a particularly lovely amphora ... just a small one, you understand). 

The caves of the region have produced an enticing collection of mortuary goods, starting with the Neanderthal 250,000 years ago and seeing the arrival of the Cromagnon culture 30,000 years ago. I have a fondness for the female figurines commonly referred as Venuses, and was happy to see one of them in the collection. They are among the oldest artistic manifestations of modern humans.

A highly satisfying trip to the very end of Italy.  

Italia 2023. Days 8-9

I didn't sleep well, so I woke up late, tired, and in no mood to go explore. Instead I stayed home working on the computer, went for a walk along the seafront, did a bit of shopping and at 6:30 pm (yes, in the evening) I left for the train station and my overnight train tip to the other end of Italy. I was going to Brindisi, which is in the heel of the Italian boot. 

In a pattern that is now all too familiar I was excited about an overnight train trip, but unwisely I didn't take a bunk bed and had to travel sitting in a regular train seat (comfortable to a certain extent but still a seat). The short runs from Cogoleto to Genoa, and Genoa to Milan were not a big deal, but the long stretch from Milan to Brindisi pretty soon lost its appeal. A pity, really, because the line follows the southern edge of the Po River valley all the way to the coast of the Adriatic, passing through towns whose names evoke delicious specialties, such as Parma, Modena, and Bologne.

By midnight I had dog napped while the train wagon filled with people, and pretty soon the inside temperature rose to uncomfortable levels. I tossed and turned in my double sit, trying to find the perfect position twisted like a pretzel. I should have put more attention when Monica was trying to teach us some of her weird yoga postures.

But all tortures eventually come to an end, and I stepped out of the Brindisi station under the 9 am radiant sun. I was going to walk 40 minutes to my B&B, but with the heat, the weight of the backpack, and my aching left foot that short walk turned into a Calvary. Finally I arrived at Villa Susanna, which is in a very nice part of town and looks like a perfect villa. Susanna herself was there to greet me and didn't mind at all that I was checking in at 10:30 am. I am lord of an apartment that has three bedrooms and know I will be very happy for the next couple of days.

But to be a good tourist you have to suffer, so my hurting foot notwithstanding I asked Susanna for the best way to get to the historic center of town. I was thinking I would take a bus, just so I would not have to walk 40 minutes back to the train station. "Oh, no", she told me, "you need to take the motobarca" across the bay". Quite simply, because the original fortified city was located on the tip of a peninsula, folks from the residential part of the city jump on the boat bus whenever they have to go to uptown. Fine with me :) 

The stop of the motobarca is not far from Villa Susanna, the pilot and his assistant are super-helpful to the tourist, and you can still buy your tickets with one euro and ten centesimos using coins! Admittedly it is a short crossing, which just gives you time enough to admire the Monument to the Mariner, which resembles an immense rudder (at least 30 meters tall), and on top of which is the statue of the Holy Virgin Mary, which has traditionally blessed outgoing mariners and welcome in coming ships. 

Once in town I admired the one column (the other one lies in pieces) that marked the end of the Via Apia since Roman times. Brindisi was the point of departure to Greece, Egypt, and the eastern Mediterranean, so it was a very strategic city even before the Roman Republic came into being. The archaeology museum is loaded with Corinthian and Minoan pottery, although the few archaeologic sites I saw were Roman.

I did my share as a tourist but came back home by mid-afternoon. I owe myself a good meal and an early retreat to bed. Tomorrow I will cast my net farther afield and will visit Lecce. 

Italia 2023. Days 6-7

Christmas morning was glorious, so after exchanging gifts with Giulia and Giacomo I went for a walk along the Cogoleto bay. I started by crossing through the commercial street that parallels the waterfront, fascinated as always by the sights of the small shops and the delcious wares in display. Cheeses, breads, salamies, and a bewildering variety of sweets are but a brief reminder that Italy is the country of good food. I was also reminded that the town started as a limestone quarry and lime roasting center, and in fact one of the most interesting houses is circular in plan view because it is the refurbished lime oven. But the great claim to fame of the town is to being the birthplace of Christopher Columbus!

I followed the coast west until the end of the bay, and then continued along the walking path that follows what used to be the railroad track and its tunnels until I reached the outcrops of steeply dipping serpentinite that so surprised me two years ago. Of course, this is the result of subduction of the Italian microplate under the Alpine plate (and the reason the Alps rise majestically to the north. In fact, the steep foothills of the Alps start less than a kilometer north of downtown, so here you can go from the seashore to the mountains in a matter of minutes. These serpentinites are also the reason why small asbestos mines (now inactive) are found throughout the region.

Satisfied with my walk I returned home shortly before noon, to meet Giulia's genitori (parents) and elderly zia (aunt). They are all good conversationalists, so I had a great opportunity to practice listening-and-comprehension and even contribute in my poor mixture of Italian and Spanish. Giulia's father, Filipo, was the owner of a construction company, and he told me all about building the three apartment towers overlooking the shore (we were looking out of the terraza of the middle building), how he had designed the penthouses thinking specifically on his daughter, and all the hoops they had to go through to get their building permits. He also built the park around the complex, and the sadly neglected plot where the police station was supposed to be built (but wasn't because Cogoleto was simply assigned to the larger town of Arenzano to the east.

Christmas lunch was superb. As antipasto we had some of the leftovers of the night before, followed by a delicious bowl of onion soup as first course, and a roast beef with potatoes as second course. The portions were gigantic, so we were all quite satisfied before the dessert arrived in the form of rice pudding, and slices of two different panettoni, one traditional Genovese and the other the one I had brought from Milan (note to Fabiola: You must try your hand at baking panettone! I believe that after baking it is turned upside down and hung from its base to keep it tall and fluffy).

Needless to say we all needed a siesta after such satisfying meal, so our visitors parted with many hugs and auguri de Natale and a delicious silence came over the house. At 7:30 pm, nicely rested, Giulia, Giacomo and I went down to the movie theater to enjoy the movie Wonka, very nicely dubbed in Italian. A fun finale to a perfect day.

The following day, Tuesday December 26, Giulia left for a well deserved vacation to Jordan. It was with a bit of sadness that I said arrivederci to my good friend, but I hope to entice her to come visit me in Bergerac this summer. So me and Giacomo were left kings of the castle. Giacomo will go his Dad's later today, and I am going to spend the day visiting with "my cousin" Giovanni (DJ's uncle), who I met two years ago and with whom I had instant rapport both in terms of age (he is 78 to my 70) and inclinations (outdoorsy and very much a man who can work with his hands). He came to pick me up around 10 am, in his old Toyota truck (the small ones of 30 years ago, which he has kept going for 600,000 km!). Life has changed for him over the last year, with the passing of his beloved wife Catherina, which in turn caused him to retire from his job as captain of a firemen squad, which in turn made him finally realize that he no longer had the energy of yesteryears. To add to it all, he recently had an operation on the tendon of his left hand, and he had a nasty looking healing incision on his wrist. But as always he was the ever gracious host and together we went to visit Catherina's family house, where over the years Giovanni planted an orchard of olive and citrus trees for his now-departed in-laws, brought irrigation water from the nearby creek, and built many improvements. The house is now empty, the trees need pruning, and the garden needs replanting, but Giovanni no longer has the necessary energy nor "a friend" to help him get things done. 

We went back to his home for lunch, where his sister-in-law prepared a delicious meal from leftovers from the Christmas dinner, including an antipasto of prosciutto and a type of broccoli pie that is only baked on Christmas, traditional ravioli as first plate, and a loaf of veal stuffed with peas that was very tasty. The think I will remember best about the sister-in-law is how fast she speaks! Even Giovanni had to ask her to slow down and finish a sentence before moving into a different topic (needless to say, I could barely understand what she was saying, in contrast to Giovanni, who speaks slowly, carefully enunciating each word, and who I have no problem understanding).

After lunch we went to nearby Celle, where Giovanni has about 500 olive trees that every year provide the whole family with first class olive oil. Of his many projects this is the one that brings him greatest joy, and I could see that there were a few newly planted trees at the edges of the carefully trimmed main orchard. I am glad that he has this project, and that he still looks forward to getting up every morning to go walk among his trees.

As we said arrivederci he assured me that he and the rest of the family were looking forward to the visit of Faby, DJ, and Ronnie this coming June. Family has been a very strong guiding principle in his life, and maintaining the link with the American family is for him a true joy.