EUROPE TRIP - MAY 12 - 30, 1962
SATURDAY, 5/12/62: Working for SBC certainly prepared me for days like the last two I've had. Get up at 8AM Saturday, and rush through the day, finally getting off about 9PM, recording everything across the ocean at the back of "Winter Tales," as follows: I had already gotten the feeling, "Well, really must I go through with it?" When going to the dentist it manifested itself, at about the fifth trip, when the familiar pain began to mount again, as the feeling "Look, couldn't we just let them ROT? I'd like very much to get OUT of here." Now, at travel time, my first trip to Europe looming ahead, I was inclined to think, "Isn't it a bit too much TROUBLE? I like it well enough here, walking the streets and looking up at the strange wonders and windows at odd people with different customs, why can't I just STAY in New York?" But the Saturday went well enough, with Bill joking, "Have anything special to do today?" and finally the last, hurried (they wouldn't be the last if they weren't hurried) bursts of packing, and the discovery, in the cab, that I'd forgotten my address book. I HAD to have it. I dropped my luggage inside the door and phoned Bill. "Could you?" He could. I dashed to the ticket counter, just catching the 7PM deadline. But it was 8:30PM when the bus was scheduled to leave. I gaped, interrupted the lady with a question, got the obvious answer, and trundled my bag across the floor to catch Bill with his mouth full of the liverwurst I had just given him. "You needn't." So he didn't. I caught a bus up First Avenue, urinated, drank water, put napkins in my pocket along with a butterscotch stick, and left for the Second Avenue bus. At this point I noticed the chafing of my specially bought, first-time-worn boxer shorts. I turned, turned back to pick up the butterscotch stick which had slipped through a hole in my left raincoat pocket, put it in my right raincoat pocket, back UP to the apartment to take off shoes, trousers, shorts, put briefs on, shorts back on, trousers, shoes, and stuffed two MORE briefs into my left raincoat pocket. They were too big to slip through the hole. Bus down, and on $1.75 bus at 8:30PM for Idlewild. On the plane: First came the carnations for the ladies, but only after they had already given orchid corsages as the ladies got off the busses. Then came the candies, the first things which went to everyone, quickly followed by the Sabena propaganda book. All this while the ordered gifts and liquors and cigarettes passed back and forth. Then came sweet-smelling scented packaged towels, followed by cigarettes, which I took and gave to the lady across the aisle. Finally came a menu. Then came the forms for press notices, along with forms for discount liquor on the return trip. A choice of drinks, very dry, was refused. Then the meal, as per the menu, except that a "Mandarin Napoleon" finished the meal in high proof. Then, horrors, came after-dinner cigars. Trip WORE on, with fat old men trying to be the life of the plane, a baby crying, and people pushing my chair. I watch the sun rise, and land finally to comical chaos at the airport---no one knows anything. Tried to sleep for at least a half-hour between sunrise and the time the lights go on, but that isn't possible.
SUNDAY, 5/13/62: Then, suddenly, we're in Brussels. The baggage is shuffled around, and customs is passed, without any intervention from the passengers, and we're on our way to the hotel. We're told, at a quarter to 12, that we have to get down to the bus at 12:15PM to take a guided tour through the old palace of the king. So I run up to the room, and the bag isn't even there; I wash my face and hands and straighten my tie and go out for the tour. The tour lasts until 1PM, and then goes into the Café du Chef, then wanders down to see Manniken Pis. Everyone eats in the restaurant diagonally across, but I go back to the Place Royale, and have a mushroom omelet, after getting a $10 travelers check cashed for Belgian currency. The day drags on, and at 3PM, back to the hotel to pick up everyone else for the general tour of Brussels. We see the cathedrals, and the working section, and the exclusive residential section on the south side of the Avenue Louise, and the Atomium, and the concrete (phallic) space needle. Back to the hotel about 6:15PM, upstairs to wash again, and down to the restaurant to eat dinner. Which is pretty bad, then decided to go out to the Atomium. Out, take a lift to the top, take a look around the city, back down, walk up escalators, back down, out to the space needle, wander around that, wander back, trying to get a cab. No cabs, so we stand at the streetcar stop and catch the first one that comes. Curves around the city, as we keep our bearings from the Marini building, and drops us a few blocks from the hotel. Walk back, Gordon leaves me, and I get lost a couple of times trying to find the Place Royale. The lights are well-placed, and the whole looks properly theatrical. Wander back to the main drag.
MONDAY, 5/14/62: Next day: Speaking of decadence (and it seems that people speak of little else), this has been quite a night. It's now 6AM on Tuesday, and I haven't been to bed since the time I got up at 6:30AM Monday morning. Left Brussels at 7AM, then through all these small towns that seemed through the day to get drearier and drearier. The cathedral at Metz was quite a show, and so was the Stanislas Square in Nancy, which we reached at 7:45PM, and got to Luneville later, then get lost among the hills and narrow winding roads. Darkness fell, and people got sillier and sillier, and they started singing and screaming in the back of the bus. We tried a bit of Botticelli, but that didn't work, since Gordon didn't know many of anyone and we all laughed at the stupidity of winging around slopes no one knew, through little lightless, shuttered villages out of Joan of Arc, laughing at names like Gottdanden and Hefferpoffer, and Opshitzdorn. Finally, at 11PM, we get to Niederbronn. We get driven up in fine style to the Casino, get seated immediately at long tables, have much of the vin de Alsace, and everyone is feeling very good. The jokes go back and forth, people talk to each other, and toasts are drunk, and everyone is very happy with everyone. After dinner, I don a tie, and a group of five of us go to the Casino. I cash a 10 franc note for five 200 chips, and end up the evening with 84 francs. So I put the money in my pocket and walk away. Walked away with Claire and Lotte and Johnny, and discover that we really don't want to go to bed, so Lotte invited us all to her apartment for coffee. We speak of mysticism, and the seances they've been to, and it ends up a typical evening of people who have nothing to do. We tell jokes back and forth to each other, and we talk about the game of "La Verite," and everyone drops names, and talks about things that happened to them during their childhood. Everyone laughs very hard, and drinks their coffee, and tries very hard to keep a part of the conversation.
TUESDAY, 5/15/62: This continues until 4:30AM, when the birds start singing outside. We step out onto the balcony and look out over the valley. It's very crisp and very clear: the birds are singing, and the houses stand as shadows against the foggy hills. So we all decide to go for a walk: we grab our coats and our gloves, and we meet downstairs under the amazed regard of the concierge. "Deja?" "Oui," "Pourquoi pas?" as we go out into the morning. We walk up and down over the slopes, and watch the trucks whiz by on the road. We pick lilac and forget-me-not and pansies. We pick buttercups and watch the snails crawling along the walls. We climb to the tops of hills for views of the city. I reach down into the brook for a colored ball bobbing under a small waterfall. We walk and talk and laugh and compare anecdotes and talk about things and people we like and don't like. Finally it's 6AM and we wander back to the hotel and get ready for breakfast and the next day of travel. These are the night people, who are not particularly interested in what happens during the day, but they can't go to sleep at night. Stories are heard, things we're going to do, things that happened to friends of ours, these take up the hours. Floating through it all is an air of decadence. People are lonely. Claire frankly admits she doesn't want to return to her lonely room, to a woman who isn't compatible with her. During the day there are frank discussions about who may go to bed with whom, and slight insinuations are dropped along many waysides. They talk about the fun they will have in Rome, they talk about exploring old castles, they talk of seeing rooms that aren't open to the public at Versailles. And such stories of the occult they can tell! Lotte tells about the time the Stuka bullets missed her when her grandfather, who was dead, and not her father, who was standing paralyzed with fear nearby, called her away from a fatal area. How the tables at a seance whirled around when the name of someone who was killed aboard the Andrea Doria was mentioned, and how they requested mass said for them in such and such a city. How three people agreed to meet in the woods, and one killed another, and how a plane they tried to avoid came floating into the meeting of the two live ones, containing the skeleton of the dead friend. And Johnny told the one about the man meeting the girl, who said she was cold, so he gave her his coat. She gave him her address, but when he went the next day to get the coat, the parents said she had died. Looking in at the cemetery, they found his coat draped over the tombstone. Everyone trotted out their favorite tales of mystery: about the Negro woman who talked with cats, and the strange man who wanted to have sex in a coffin, and the Roman party games where dances were held to see who would go to bed with whom, and they mixed the circles of men and women just to make it more fun. And always the delicious threat of La Verité. Johnny convulsed us with the story of the Negress with the spaghetti coming out of her nose, and I tried to entertain with my choking with hot fudge sundaes, and the joke about the dull-wit who wanted a spoon with sex, because he'd always been given a bowl of borsch before. After saying the above, I fell back on the bed in a near faint for about a half-hour, got up, washed, ate breakfast, got out in gentle rain about 9:30. Went to Strasbourg and saw one of the cathedrals there and looked across the river into Germany. Saw SHEAF headquarters, then stopped in a little town called Colmar, where we ate lunch at a hotel-restaurant, and afterward searched for a mailbox in which to deposit the key I discovered I'd kept from Niederbronn. Back to the bus to discover a trip to a wine-bottler, and stare at the huge vats used to store wine, and listened to the interpreters and drank two or three glasses of the rather tart wine, so by this time the busses were rocking with gaiety. Over the Swiss border at Basel, and we marveled at the beauty of the mountains. Get into Lucerne about 8PM, since the wine-tasting had taken so long, and find Paul waiting for me there. That evening was quite a riot. We eat dinner in the hotel with Paul as guest, and Mrs. Miller corners Paul and starts talking about tourism and national ideas, etc. Lotte and Paul and I try to avoid the other people, and wander through the narrow wet streets, and see towers, and Paul steers us somewhere which he says is mixed, and German singers entertain us, and five minutes later the entire bus party walks in, only to leave again when the Jews hear about the German beer-fest. Suddenly their nationality is made clear to me, and we all laugh about my naivete and the ham served at Niederbronn. Gordon joins us, to be made a butt of jokes, and I almost drown in my huge beer stein. Return to the hotel and say goodnight to everyone, and Paul joins me in a shower and a pleasant tumble before going to sleep.
WEDNESDAY, 5/16/62: Europe has improved him, and we go to sleep about 2AM and get up at 6AM, so that he can leave, and I get involved with Claire and her Polaroid camera. We cross the little wooden bridge, and look at the Town Hall. Then the bus begins to wind up the hills, and the vistas expand, and the lakes sink below us, and we pass through Schwyz with its beautiful town square, and look at the chapel to Queen Ingrid, when she hit a tree, and the manure smell of the fields trampled by fat cows smells good and natural after the denseness of the cities. See icy waters rushing down to the lakes from the snowy peaks, and careen around breathless curves. At Goshenon we leave the bus while the bus and us get on a train through the St. Goddard pass. I find it impossible to sleep during the day, for fear I'll miss some of the beauty along the way. Airolo for lunch in a beautifully wood-paneled restaurant, and postcards, and get helped by a native American who's come to live there. Again through the sky-mountains, and I'm thinking we'll never get to Milan for La Scala. We stop around Lake Lugano and I have my first taste of a "Uomini" room, with two footrests and a hole, but the lake is gorgeous. The narrative here drags enormously as I fight extreme fatigue. We have trouble with one-way streets in Milan, and get to the hotel about 9PM, when I find that Lotte, who left early to get seats, found no performance that night. After dinner, I wander out on the town by myself. Get lost and confused with an inadequate map, so I really don't see anything. Except bums sleeping on park benches, and the main park, which could have been so nice, skillfully locked for the night, though I see a huge terminal arcade. Back to the hotel about 1AM, and clamber out on the ledge, trying to get a view of Johnny, but there's just a woman's hat on the bureau, so I figure I've got the wrong room.
THURSDAY, 5/17/62: Thursday we bypass Verona, and keep on the rather boring Autostrada. If I want to see a turnpike, I'll stay in the US. Stop at Padua for the shrine of St. Anthony and the multitudes kneeling in front of his tomb. Have a quick lunch and wander the town on my own, and see why Mario regretted the lack of piazzas here, and the open-air markets, and the yellow hot stretches in the middle of the city. Here I learn, to great repetition, "Dové Piazza della Republica?" See the places along the river bank, the construction going on, the inhabitants in their streets, though rather barren due to the siesta. The Autostrada thankfully ends, and at 4PM we see the spires of Venice rising in the distance. Leave the busses, push through the silk and card salesmen, have a bit of gelati, and board a magnificent gondola, sitting in the black cushions through a never-ending maze of canals, through which we wonder if the gondolier can find his way. After a long journey, where we make stupid comments about the rats and the cats and the roaches, and the decayed and crumbling basements and magnificent upper stories, with laces and crystals and velvets visible in the windows. We reach the Splendide Suisse, where we're amazed to find an elevator. Back from the rooms to replace the husband of a couple who wanted to see the Guggenheim palazzo, which tour Lotte has arranged. Lotte calls to a gondolier on the bridge, and we take off down the Grand Canal for the white marble pile, covered with ivy. Look at her Dalis and Ernsts and Picassos and Pollocks and Tancredis and the immensely phallic "Boy at Dawn," and speak with the faggoty tour leader, and with Peggy, then scream down the Grand Canal trying to get the attention of a gondola. Down the Canal to the Piazza San Marco where we're much too late to greet the tour. See the Cathedral on our own, the nude ground floor, and the mosaiced ceilings, then wander a bit, and Betty says she must get back to the hotel, as do I, so we return, and just as I'm wondering what to do, I get a call that Franco Sernagiotto is waiting for me downstairs. He's interesting if he wouldn't have such a superior attitude, but his studies at the University of Padua and his marvelous English and his love of Venice, comparable to my love of New York, causes endless chainings of conversation. He suggests a place for dinner, and I'm introduced to the long conversations which Italians seem to think is part of ordering a meal. We wander the streets of Venice, across many bridges, and we walk for hours talking. Back to the hotel at midnight, trying to see Lotte, but seeing everyone else, which establishes my reputation, since all the females can only talk about how charming Franco was, and since neither Gordon nor Johnny saw him, they will undoubtedly construct him from their imaginations much better than he was. I invite him up to my room rather to everyone's scandal, and we talk again, and get chummy, then intimate, but his snobbishness puts me off, and I plead the excuse of my growing beard and tiredness, and he immediately stops, as if this happened to him as a matter of course, and we exchange addresses, and he leaves, and I get to bed about 1:30AM.
FRIDAY, 5/18/62: Up tired and sad to leave Venice at 6:30AM, and glance quickly at Francesco, whom Lotte passes off as a friend of a friend, though I really suspect she's probably still a virgin. The motor launch is boarded by standing in the doorway, looking at everything sweep past as we get to the terminal. Into the bus, back through Padua, where we stop at another church, then through Ferrara and Ravenna, where we stop for lunch, but again I wander off, munching gelatis, and watch them clean sewers, then even take off to see the Archiepiscopal Museum with its mosaics. Eat a couple rolls for sustenance. Roll on through the countryside to Rimini, lose the way to San Marino, find it again and get only half an hour, so I go dashing up the hill, but can't reach the top, but buy cards and back to the swooping swallows in the sunset off the incredible precipices surrounding this tiny monarchy. The bus swings around, looking over valleys, over the ocean, over vineyards, and looking up to the embattlemented escarpments of the citadel. In Rimini our destination hotel hasn't been built yet, so we wind up at the Savoy. Dinner in the posh dining room, and everyone decided to have a twist party on Lotte's balcony, except that everyone's tired, so Lotte and Claire and I end up with the marvelous muscatel of San Marino wine in a room, again laughing and trying to keep the evening alive, though I'm almost too exhausted to participate. At 1AM even Claire leaves, and Lotte and I put on our bathing suits and go out to the beach, but the water is much too cold, and we dip a minute, then return to wander through the streets with our shoes in our hands. I try to make her feel busy and caught up, but eventually it's simply too much trouble and we return to the hotel, where she asks if I want a shower, which I stupidly decline, since I have a sponge bath in the bidet which is thoroughly unpleasant. Finally fall asleep about 3AM. These nights I had no difficulty falling asleep.
SATURDAY, 5/19/62: Up the next day very early and go back through the mountains. That morning we get a lunch packed and stop in some small town at lunchtime and play records, and it starts raining, and the entire restaurant is changed for the worse into a hell-raising crowded din. The citizens stand by and look at us in complete amazement, but some of the grandmotherly older ladies make a tentative hit with some youngsters by giving, through the mother, a sweet to the little girl (reminds of Marty's little girl in Italy, who was born while her parents were in Algiers, in a little voice, "Je suis Africaine.") The twist is the most popular thing on records, and Lotte does a poor one, but Johnny is the center of attraction with his swinging rendition. Have a long heated discussion about going to Assisi, when I act as spokesman for the "go-getters" and finally one bus goes on to Rome and one heads for Assisi. A couple adopts our bus as their own and declaim the other bus as a bunch of complainers. That's OK, since we have Henry Shafer to dampen any of our enthusiasms. It's quite an impressive church, one above, one below, and a crypt below that. Down the road (walking, since the narrow, flower-potted streets hardly allow the bus to turn around) to the church of St. Claire, where Claire is eager to see her remains, looking brown. Everyone's happy, and Nick's happy, and everyone's bought many things as bargains, and everyone assures us they'll tell the other group they really enjoyed Assisi. We get into Rome about 9PM, and have dinner in the hotel. Claire and Lotte and I go out to start wandering the streets, and find the Spanish Stairs and climb to the top, where Claire looks ready to collapse, and finally we come back to the hotel in a taxi and drop her off, and Lotte and I sit in the "Campari" section of the Via Veneto, and watch all the people walk by. Finally at 2AM I'm very tired and go to bed.
SUNDAY, 5/20/62: Get up about 8AM, and there's guided sight-seeing tour of the city. Stop at the Trevi fountain, and at the top of the Janiculum Hill, and stop at St. Peter's for the Pope's blessing from his balcony at noon. Back for lunch, and I take a table and chair out on the balcony to write postcards and back to the tour of the Coliseum and the Forum, and the Victor Emmanual Monument, and the baths of Caracalla, and a pyramid, and the site of the Circus Maximus, and the Jewish temple, and many of the sights around Rome (which I sketched on my map). Back to the hotel and arrange to meet for dinner, but try to get an ungettable Claire, and so I and John walk down to try to find the Hostaria dell'Orso. We talk on the way, and I'm still quite puzzled about him. In desperation we can't find the Hostaria, but wander thru streets lined with new and old antique shops, selling new and old antiques, and quite a festive air it has. Just as we're giving up our search, we simply turn around, and there it is. Back to the Via Veneto at 9:15PM, and Lotte and Gordon are coming toward us, just as they met us when WE were going toward the Hostaria. John went back to his room in great fatigue (though later he reported he'd been out on the town later), but Lotte's ready to go, since she'd slept the night through until 4PM, and so had Gordon. We selected a little place to eat, since Lotte was starved, and I got numbed with tiredness as the waiter mixed the appetizers and soups and entrees and main courses. Back to the room, put my underwear in to clean, recorded this and will get to bed about 1AM. I had a bit of trouble sleeping through, since I was almost desperate with thirst. So, about 2AM, I ran the water very cold and had two glasses of the natural Roman water (against all advice of the guide who pooh-poohed drinking mineral water in France, yet warned against Italian drinking; and under the advice of Lotte, who bemoaned American water as being full of chemicals) hoping that nothing would ruin my so-far good health, but heavy exhaustion (though it was only the exuberant health which permitted me to get so exhausted). I came with a great deal of gusto earlier.
MONDAY, 5/21/62: Woke in the morning to pack everything (the first time I'd UNpacked), and threw everything in helter-skelter and got it into the hall just in time for the door porter to take it away, and got down to breakfast late. Lotte joined me even later, and the 7:30AM leaving schedule was adhered to at 8AM. Left Rome via Viterbo, and the waves rolling in from the sea. Some children waved at us with good-natured gaiety, but some of the boys made rather ambiguous smile-less signs, and one girl smiled stiffly up and then glared down at the road under her feet. Rode through very small towns with very winding streets, while I tried to avoid everyone's gay chatter about the trip. On Lake Bolsena, the boys from one of the restaurants stopped the bus by waving tablecloths, and we had a long lunch in a glass and stone echoing room from 12:30 to 2:30PM. Rode through Acquapedente, and stopped in Siena about 5PM after navigating the busses through impossibly narrow streets, to the amazement and laughter of the villagers. Finally we parked the bus, and walked down to the square, coquille-shaped with a shell fountain with remarkable carvings. Walked up to the cathedral, with some of the mosaics covered, but the Massacre of the Innocents proclaimed itself through the floorboards. The multi-colored facade proclaimed the Italian talent for going just to the border of bad taste and then stopping, while the world looked with amazement at the results. Walked back through what must have been most of the town, and marveled again and again at the beauty of the male inhabitants. Walked past the shops and the churches and the winding ways of the old streets, with the fat and the limping bringing up the rear. Back into the bus for a pool as to our time of arrival in Florence. There at 9:30PM after a snail-like pace behind logging trucks, and everyone singing in the dark. At the "Grand" Hotel de Cavour, all hilarity broke loose. I got my room number, walked up the steps to find it, and there on the first landing it was. Opening the door and walking in, I found a chintz-covered table, a wooden chair, an old sink, an older bed, and an antique bidet, and that was all. Walked down the stairs laughing, and saw on the price list it was only 800 lire, while the next cheapest started at 1600. Into the dining room for some chilly, though excellent, roast beef, while of course some slammed down silverware shouting it was cold, and leaving to find other places, one even leaving a special omelet they had ordered. Then everyone wanted to display their rooms. I led the way past my room, and Lotte collapsed in fits of laughter when I shouted up, "You PASSED IT." We went up the stairs to Gordon's room, wandered around the floor, walked down a few stairs, through a maintenance gallery, and stooped down to avoid the pipes to get into his room. By this time stomach cramps from laughter started to set in. Claire had to show everyone HER room, and we wandered down corridors until we began to suspect her room wasn't there at all. We turned a corner from a different angle, saw a shadowy passage, and found a staircase mounting a half-flight to a sort of mezzanine. We pranced up these stairs, causing Sadie to come to the door with a puzzled look on her face as we laughed down the hall. Finally up to Lotte's room to look out on the three towers. Three of us tried to take a walk in the city, but it was dark and gloomy, and after a half-block we came back. I washed socks out, hung them to dry (they didn't for two days), and came with mirrors after a rather erotic day fantasizing about the magnificent young man I would leave the tour to live with in Adquapedente. Bed at 11PM, and the next day a sight-seeing tour of Florence.
TUESDAY, 5/22/62: The tour starts late, but I get up early, and chance going down the hall for a nice brisk shower, feeling really clean for the first time in weeks. The tour seemed to encompass everything Michelangelo ever did, including four huge unfinished blocks in the Galleria della Academia. And the David, which I absorbed for half an hour, and all through the day picked up postcards with different views of this undoubted masterpiece. Saw the David Terrace, and the tombs of the Medicis, and studied the titles on the vaults (39 of them). The bus winds through the streets of the lower city, stopping at some lesser sights as a silversmith's and the Florence leather shop, which carries things which can be picked up on 42nd Street for the same price, but also stop at the Moses, and other fountains and the Dying Gaul (no, wrong, across from the Trevi in Rome). At 1PM the tour comes to an end at the hotel, and I take off for the Uffizzi, and find the Piazza della Signoria, and gape at the statues, and tour the Ufizzi, and it's Rome all over again with the marvelous painting and statuary, and incomparable Botticelli, and stand in complete amazement before some of the luscious statues. Out and across the closed Ponte Vecchio to the Pitti Palace, where I go through the Museo del'Argenti, and marvel at the tables, of inlaid marbles, and the floors, of mosaics, and the huge clasps, of baroque pearls, and the cameos, finely cut, shading the sunlight with their clear curves. The huge rooms, looking even larger due to the celestial and pastoral perspectives included at top and sides. Cherubs swing on draperies, and balustrades support bodies of revelers looking down into the room. Leave the interiors about 3:30PM and go into the Boboli Gardens beyond. The weather is quite hot, and after scaling the hill and feeling the heat, I climb the small tower with a cup of ice cream and sit and regard the city. Florence is a city uniquely adapted for marvels and wonders. Down into the gardens again, past literally hundreds of clerics, trainees, in their loose black frocks and their wandering eyes. Meet Claire and John just across the Ponte Vecchio, and pass pleasantries. Again the Piazza della Signoria, and cross to the Duomo, climb up the bell-tower, miraculously constructed by Giotto, with a distinct feeling of vertigo as I rush to the parapet to find I'm literally hanging over the city on ancient stone. Wander around, watching the people photographing the city, and wishing I could photograph them, and wind my way down the stairs again into the Duomo itself. Climb again, this time to the dome (find the rather typical bareness of the walls rather depressing, but a side altar is holding service, and the gold and candle-light glimmer.) An art class is holding forth on the roof, and eventually we're all forced down by the 6PM closing time. Dash down to the area under the dome to have time to study "The Last Judgement" by Vasari, so says the guide, and everyone who cannot climb over 200 steps to see such a masterpiece up close is missing one of the lesser known treasures of Florence's pornographic realm. The informal tortured and torturers writhe just above the viewer, and the painting fades into the seraphic bliss of the heavens above, but more distant, and certainly less intriguing. The saved are always so pure. Out to the Baptistry and pay to have the lights put on the mosaics, a case of bad timing, since a few minutes later a proud Italian couple have their child baptized there in the impersonal gloom. Back to the hotel to write a letter and wait for someone to call me for supper, but no one does. Back to the statuary piazza and eat at what appears to be the most popular restaurant. Halfway through my chicken I push the chair back, slam down my napkin, and run out to the street to tap Julian Gerard on the shoulder. Talk for a few minutes and back to eat after arranging to meet later in the Piazza della Republica in front of Donini's. I get there about 10:15PM, trying to prove Paul's right about the cruising, but all I see are Lotte and Gordon, enjoying the outdoor concert on the other side of the Piazza. I see nothing to stay for, and so leave, glancing fondly back at the incredibly cocky fountains and statues. Sleep about midnight.
WEDNESDAY, 5/23/62: Leave the next day, and, as is obvious the next night, lock my suitcase and leave the key on the table somewhere. Into the bus at 8AM, and travel quiet little towns until we get to Pisa. The Leaning Tower does lean and quite a distance, too. Climb to the top, of course, and wave to everyone below, and get out on the middle balconies, where, surprisingly enough, they have no railings, and the dizziness from the stairs, and the slant of the ground itself, makes it hardly a safe place to be when drunk. Get to the church, which has very little decoration, except in fragments, and to the Baptistry, which has none, but is purely an example of off-white architectural interiors. Wait till they round up Clair, who's bought a table I'll live to wish she never had (well, maybe not, it did get me a ride home, dinner, and a look at twins who would really be a study of differences). Get to Viareggio about 11:25AM and stop for lunch, after wandering a canal filled with literally a million fish. A passable lunch is followed by a spectacular desert (one turtle-shell of fresh fruit, and actually a frilly chocolate iced cake). Travel through Sestri Levante, and La Spezia, and Rapallo, and at the behest of Nick, who has taken over to the disgust of Shafer, we travel through the beautiful Portofino, and through the scarcely less beautiful Santa Marguerita Liguria. What a ride on a narrow road hewn between the ascending cliff and the sounding sea, where cars have to back up so we can get around a curve, skittering stones to splash below. And when two busses meet, there's much shouting and skirting and hedging around. The small sheltered harbor is transparent even in the twilight sun, and the buildings are as small and crowded and colorful as all the photos attest. Through the lower town, and Nick shoos me up a cliff-walk to a piazza between a castle and a church, with the harbor on one side and the sea on the other, and between, only beauty. He describes his honeymoon, and I try on a pair of swim trunks, but don't buy, since they aren't me. Back to the bus with Claire looking impossibly Germanic in a black straw wig that Johnny, natch, bought. Get to Genoa about 9:30PM after taking the wrong roads, necessitating both busses backing up and down, and the hotel attendant running in front of the bus to get us to the door. Ignore the rooms, and head for the dining room, only after a farcical set-to in the toilet, which is obviously for women, judging from the laughs when Johnny and I make our exit, after washing and using their little guest towels hung on hooks from the walls. At this point Doria wants to see her castles. She gets directions from a hotel employee, and we walk down a street the likes of which neither she nor I had seen before. The American ships are in, and the girls, who'd followed them from Egypt, line the streets in an attempt to line their pockets from the sailor's lining their pockets, while the prostitute's child begs of the sailors. Get directions from a storekeeper who says that hers is everything in black and white. "My dear, we own half the town." And I declare solemnly that the black and white painted safety islands on the streets to be theirs. Sit and rest in a park, smell flowers, look at maps, and speak of nothing in particular, though the evening had one advance, as she took my arm on the street, and she had no qualms about taking it after that (though she still always lit her own cigarettes; I treats 'em rough). Watch the workings of the street, and about 12AM we're back in the hotel. Decide to shower, but discover my un-unlockable suitcase. The clerk has nothing, and in disgust I fall into bed.
THURSDAY, 5/24/62: The next morning I get down and find that any keys they have are no good on American-style luggage. I ask my "friends" as they come down the stairs, and finally one has a spare American Tourister key, and by dint of bending and struggling and praying for lack of break, it scrapes open. I dash upstairs to brush my teeth and change my socks, and DAMN, but my shoelace breaks, which makes frustration complete. Bus at 8AM, but weather is cloudy, which cuts off the sea beauty. Hills climb into mountains, and slopes are masses of color in the spring display. Rocks and precipices cascade flowers in all the colors there are. Noon in San Remo, and Lotte and I wander off for lunch at the Lido Imperatrice, but she disdains food, so she watches me. Wander the streets, and back onto the bus. All these days I'm counting the days and the cities and the stops left in the trip; continue through Bordergerhia and Ventimelia, and get to the border, show passports four times, and into France. In Monaco I finish my lire, except for one of each as a souvenir, pick up Monagesque coins, and buy cards and stamps. Nick sends the bus to the bottom of the hill, and the grumbling horde descends the beautiful hill to overlook the bay and underlook the castle, and gape at the yacht which could only be Onassis's. View is great. Down to the bus, and arrive at Nice about 7PM. Into supper, a good one, and wheedle a key from Florence, have an uncomfortable shower with a hand hose, and out to the streets, as others decide to board a bus for Monte Carlo. I sit for an hour listening and watching the sea come onto the pebbly shore. Wander along the "Promenade des Anglais" until a huge palace rising in the distance, and find the Palais de la Mediterrané, which is a gambling casino. Cash in 40 new francs, about $8, which would have been my winnings from Niederbronn, and play for 45 minutes, during which time I end with $16, which I, in one fell losing streak in which I bet a $6 on one turn of the wheel, lose altogether. Wander out and along the main street by the ocean, and return by the side streets, and end on the beautiful Boulevard de Victor Hugo, and get to the hotel about 12:30AM.
FRIDAY, 5/25/62: Into the bus and travel through the bright countryside along the coast, missing the turnoff for Cannes, unfortunately. Up the hills to Grasse, and stop in a perfumerie which I closed except for the tourists, and see the churning vats and find it's only oil and grease and fat and flowers. The end of the tour is in the salesroom, where I smell dozens of flavors, all of them violently oily or fruity. Through hills that look rather like the rocky barren slopes of the Sierras around Monterey, and continue the amazing series of climbs and descents. Get into Digne, a fascinating town around siesta, with all the workers in the town sitting on the side streets in awning-shaded coffee shops with nothing to do but exude their manliness. Lunch at the Ermitage Napoleon with a wonderful fresh salad and an incomparable omelet, and fantastic fresh strawberries and cream, which the female waiter fussed over as if she was going to eat them herself. Back into the bus, and lose the other bus and travel through country that changes faces so quickly it's the only thing that saves it from crashing into complete boringness. The clear sky clouds over, letting rays fall into valleys, then the sky is all gray and it rains, and then suddenly it clears, and the sun comes up, and all is bright again. One moment the valleys are capped over with gray, and the next the streets over which we are riding are dry. Then the clouds disappear over the grain fields and it's clear again. Gaby gets sick, and we have to stop and wait for her. And again at tea-time I get out and listen to the birds and the crickets and the smells of the country. Get into Lyons about 9PM and get shunted into a Horn and Hardart-type restaurant, where everyone complains about the food, but tomorrow's the last day of travel and everyone's happy enough. Get out of the town just at midnight, in time to see the lights on the top of the cathedral go off, turn back to the carnival across the street from the hotel to find the last of the wild mice scurrying for safety, and the last pile of milk bottles being knocked over, and the wooden flaps being hoisted into place by hard-eyed women. I finally get into the hotel and say goodnight to everyone, and get to my room, which I'm sharing with Gordon, and he's already asleep when I get into the room.
SATURDAY, 5/26/62: The bell rings at 7AM, and he's out before I can even get up. Finally I get up, take a bath, eat breakfast, and out to the bus again. Travel through a countryside which gradually becomes more and more dull, a France looking more like an Ohio, or any other, countryside. Stop at Saulieu for lunch, and it turns out to be one of the best meals ever. The ham with a cheese sauce tastes unlike anything, and the appetizer of paté immersed in a hollowed out piece of bread with a bit of gelatin on top is good too. Strictly a family affair, with mother and sister doing the cooking, and two or three sonny-boys serving the dishes. Flowers everywhere, and most of the tables are reserved, probably for the families after they get out of late Sunday mass. Wind up to Sens, when Nick stops for "tea" and shoos me into the treasury, which he says is far-famed, but it's just a couple of bodies and a finger of St. Luke, and a beautiful tapestry behind the altar for which the lady lifts the curtain for the sun to lighten the room a bit. Back into the bus after almost losing it, having moved, and up within 30 feet of a good view of Fontainebleau without seeing it, because the bus doesn't bother to go up the right street. I spy the Eiffel Tower on the horizon, which proclaims the entrance to Paris, the last city on the tour. I help guide the bus through the streets, and have a fancy time with the telephone operators in Paris at the hotel to get Jean-Jacques' number to call him. It takes him from 7 to 8PM to get into town, so I get "Hello, Paris" and start watching television, for the "Sorcerer's Apprentice," and at 8PM, after making it well-known to everyone that I'm not having dinner at the hotel, but am meeting someone, get out into the rain to meet JJ. We look at each other, I in my scrubby beard which refuses to grow when I wanted it to, and he in his new mustache, and burst out laughing for a few moments. His first words, through the laughter, are "Don't say anything." We go to eat in a small place in St. Germain de Pres, then drive up to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur, obscured by all the fog, after missing any possible fireworks from the Palais de Chaillot. Past the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, and then he shows me the streets of sin of Paris, alongside the Madeleine, and another section and street filled with bars filled with boys and girls in various stages of attraction. Les Halles is quiet, and finally about 12:30AM he drives me back to the hotel. I'm extremely tired, almost too tired to smile at that which he shows me, and I plead to be let go and fall into bed.
SUNDAY, 5/27/62: Up for the sight-seeing tour at 9AM, and get to the Hotel de Ville in time for the Mayor's reception at 10AM. The City Hall turns out to be a splendid palace, with marble and crystal, and staircases and chandeliers, and grand entrance ways and reception halls. And Savonnierre carpets everywhere. At 11:30AM we stop at the Louvre to enjoy a couple of Paris's famous "Views" or "Axes," and I leave the tour, pay my franc, and wander to marvel at the Greek statuary of the Louvre. Up to the Rubens room, and the Van Dyke room, and the Rembrandt room, and the Grande Hall, which contains immediately recognizable, incredibly smooth, lusciously fleshy paintings by the incredibly gifted David. See the Winged Victory, and the Mona Lisa, and the Venus de Milo, all of which were rather disappointing, but some of the smaller things are eye-catching, the Discobolus for one, and Hercules carrying a child for another. Incredible builds on these people. Out about 1:30PM, and cab to the hotel about 2PM, try to grab a quick lunch, but even the red tape associated with a "serve yourself" restaurant is too great to cut, and the food couldn't be eaten in less than half an hour anyway. The afternoon tour unfortunately goes to Montmartre again, and I see the inside of the church, which isn't too much, and pick out a waffle covered with whipped cream, and a couple of tarts which I eat on a tour of the amateur painters' paintings around the sidewalk cafes. Have my first temptation to buy some paintings for $25, but I don't, though others do. Stop at Les Invalides to see Napoleon's tomb, and stop at Notre Dame, and I pop into a worthless treasury, and the rose windows are rather dull in the listless day. The elevator doesn't work to the Arc de Triomphe, so the main wonder of that is the sleek tunnel which crosses under the Place d'Etoile. Get dinner at the hotel, which I pay for, though I didn't get their free lunch, and grab a cab for the Theater de Champs-Elysees for a performance of Verdi's "Othello" that JJ got tickets for, and in my haste to leave the cab, the 2f 90 taxi bill is paid for with three 10 franc notes, and then I wondered why the taxi-driver thanked me. JJ and I have a good laugh. The opera was excellent. Good singing, except possibly for Othello, wonderful costumes, and magnificent tableaus in which the settings and lights remind us of Tiepolo or Tintoretto. However, the elaborate sets required much time to put up, and though it started promptly at 8PM (so promptly JJ was late), it ended at 10 minutes to 1 with its three intermissions during which he has a chance to gulp three sandwiches, and I ogle 6 egg-sized diamonds and the electric bluebird coat. He drives me back to the hotel, and we arrange to meet for lunch. Bed about 1:30AM.
MONDAY, 5/28/62: Up at 8AM and lounge until 10AM, and get down to breakfast just when everyone's having breakfast. See the inside of the Madeleine, and walk along the Seine, and along the Boulevard Raspail where we have lunch of a sandwich of Risilley, or some such paté-like meat, from Marseille. Drive over to see JJ's new apartment, which is quite bare, but the view has been moved in (or out), and he can see just about everything except the Eiffel Tower, which might be a good arrangement. Look about for a while, and he drives me to the Seine, and I begin to walk back, but it's evident I won't make it, so catch another cab. Arrive promptly at 2PM to find the tour waiting for 2:30PM, and we leave about 3PM. Sit in the bus and watch the city pass by, which is by far the best, most native, and cheapest way of seeing anyplace, and then leave for Versailles. The Hall of Mirrors is quite grand, but through it I have the feeling of lethargy which has come over me, mainly in Paris, but I felt it creeping up previously. It's the feeling that I want very much to get back home, the feeling of a hunger for a routine. It's a desire to reestablish the old routine which has proven so satisfactory. Possibly it's a yen to hear some music, which I haven't heard for a while, or to read some types of things that I haven't read for a while. Possibly it's a yen to get back to Cue magazine and a list of movies and plays and television shows to see and check off. Possibly it's the water which has caused a bit of constipation, because I've had some small difficulty going to the toilet. And quite possibly it has a lot to do with the fatigue of going to bed late, and getting 4 or 5 hours' sleep, and having a very busy day, and looking and using the eyes ceaselessly in bright sun. But whatever it is, I'm quite exhausted.
TUESDAY, 5/29/62: 7PM: I'm very happy that at this time tomorrow I'll be home. Back in New York I can sort things out and get things back in order. Start a new day with working, and getting the mail, and getting caught up again in the life of New York. But sometime in Paris it seemed that I just wanted to sit down and sleep, but it wasn't exactly sleep, because it was a hunger, also. I think I've come more in Paris with my own hand than anywhere else. It seems that all the frustrations of the trip have built up into this. Looking at all the magnificent statues have ended in this. We'll see how I feel when I get back home. Here ended the tape of my trip of May 12-29, 1962. That evening ended with my getting a free dinner in the hotel, when I told the maitre d' that I had missed two free meals. He sat me with another tour, and it develops that the hotel is full of tours from New York, California, and various parts of South America. The group is pleasant, and I walk to the Folies Bergere, clutching my ticket from the tour in my hand. The theater is grand and well-lit and plush, and the program shows that Henri Barjac is someone to watch for. Indeed he is. The tableaux are much too quick, with their miles of satin materials, and the pace so furious you have little time to realize that there is no talent whatsoever in the show. But Henri Barjac is incredible, and I'm sure everyone in the audience found someone they wished they could take home with them. After the show I meet Lotte, and again it's the quartet of Lotte, Claire, Johnny and I on the town. We try the metro, but find there's no convenient way of getting to the hotel. I have the feeling I might as well go, since this is the last night, and suggest to Lotte that we take in the Place Pigalle. She's hungry, and when we get to the hotel we go to a Times Square sort of place across from the hotel and have a darn time finding something on the menu we like, but have it anyway, and get into bed about 2AM.
WEDNESDAY, 5/30/62: Up and pack, and I end up taking less than I came with, but Claire gives me her table to watch, and Lotte her tote bag, and someone gets Lotte to beseech me to carry five fifths of Scotch out through customs for them. Discouraged to find that the seating is arranged the same, and the trip between Paris and Brussels is over before it starts. In Brussels I hide myself off in a corner to read, and Claire almost makes me weep by coming over with a Coke and a delicious ham sandwich. Back to the plane and I grab a window seat which Mr. Pouteau threatens to toss me out of, but I stick through the only clear flying weather we have, and I see the Channel and Wales, and get a great view of the millions of ice flows under the plane off Newfoundland. Lotte and I gab about nothing through the trip, childhood experiences, and what we've gotten from the trip, and how much the tourists have gabbed and tried to find out about the goings-on in our group. Hope they had more fun with us than we had. Flying into the sun makes for a long day, and we land at sunset at 12:30PM Europe time, 7:30PM US time. Have a devil of a time grabbing a dolly, and hoisting Claire's and Lotte's luggage, but we're all through customs, and I toss off Claire's table, and Lotte's bag, and leave the Scotch standing. Out to the Nowak's car, and into town to eat at Calico Kitchen, which isn't bad, and we laugh almost to the point of tears by reminding ourselves of some of the frightful things and people that happened to us. We exchange addresses (rather, Claire gets mine, and I see she has Johnny's, and I get Claire's and Lotte's, which I'll certainly never use, though I rather hope they'll use theirs). And they drive us all home, taking care to let me out first, and I'm too tired to suspect what they may do.
THURSDAY, 5/31/62 (and beyond): I get up at 4:30AM, and get quite a few things done around the apartment because of the time difference. Work of course is nonexistent, and I chatter about my trip, and my beard causes quite a scandal. Friday is no better, as new people see me and ask about the trip, and again I spend time doing nothing but talk. Monday everyone's amazed to see the beard, though a few say that it has a great possibility of looking nice, but on Monday night I document it coming off, which is lucky, since Tuesday morning Dr. Flatt from San Jose came in talking about a Nuclear Conference, and I get a clearance to go which I certainly wouldn't have obtained in a hairy condition. The conference was boring on Tuesday morning and Wednesday evening, but the trip on Thursday out to Brookhaven would have been worth the whole thing. I suppose that that was the last thing I needed to assure myself that my bus trip was over, by taking another bus trip out on Long Island. I didn't even think of Europe while on the bus, so the thousands of miles traveled didn't spoil my bus-sitting abilities. The tendency to get up at 5AM gradually drifted toward 6:30AM, but that particular time held on for a week, but it became easier and easier to drift off to sleep until the alarm. Finally I had truly returned from my VERY FIRST, but not the last, European trip.