Italy 1981–82
ITALY TRIP, December 15, 1981 - January 20, 1982
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1981. Bed at 12:15 am but still awake at 1:30. Cough, but finally get to sleep. Wake at 7:30 and doze till 8:30 and then up to finish index---thank goodness I can mail it. Things move slowly: bank takes a long wait for Miss Quimby to sign my check for $1000 from Rolf for cash. Decide to get $1900 in $50 Traveler's Checks and end up buying stamps and toothbrush and batteries and notebooks and end up with $24. Rolf over at 5:10 as I'm counting pills, taking a LONG time, and at 6 I'm still packing! Really push stuff in and think of shoes LAST! Decide to LOCK bag, strap and all. Sweating; change clothes to jeans and flannel shirt and "formal" shoes and TAKE heavy coat at least for RAIN HERE (and would I have been LOST without it!). Out at 6:30 and car stand says 10-15 minutes for $20. I go to Henry and Clark and an off-duty cab stops and fare ends at $15.90 at 7:25, almost a record low. Give him 2.60 tip and it's $18.50 even WITH the conduit, but Atlantic was SLOW in rain and red lights. Easy ingress to Capitol at 7:30 to hear someone checking in ahead of me for 7:30 flight! Through security and to gate 1 to get last left window BEHIND wing BEFORE smoking section. He says boarding at 7:55. I shop for Eduardo and buy a CUTE Dakin for $7.40, cashing my first check already! At 8:05 in area they announce boarding delayed till 8:35. Nonstop flight due in at 9:45 (7:45 flying with 6-hour time change) but HE says 10:30. There goes the 11:15 train to Milan. Now to see if I make 13:30! Movie is "Breaker Morant," a KICK, and we DO get meals. Well, I tell myself, the more we're delayed the more we'll fly in daylight! Mad dash for boarding at 8:30 first call. Board 8:35. Good passengers: mostly young, some squally kids, some dour oldsters. Start reading "Pale Fire" at 8:55: people BEHIND of course speaking GERMAN and babies in FRONT of course crying. I sit quite listless, waiting for the 8-hour ordeal to at least BEGIN. Captain at 9:15 "Rain slows down works. Blue Spruce route: over Canada, south of Iceland, over Europe. 7-hour 1-minute flight extended to 7 hours 49 minutes; fuel on way NOW. Because one Omega unit (over-water navigation unit) not working!" at 9:15. Putting 6 seats in 5 windows means almost NO one can see! Now 9:35, on board for an hour ALREADY. 9:45: We can start engines at 10:10! Even if we LEAVE at 10:11, 4:11 new time, we're in at NOON! Rain stops. 10 pm engines start; 33,000 feet; 7 hours, 49 minutes. Leave terminal at 10:15. Four hours flying in dark. Face heats up as we move. LONG line of planes take off as I rev up and try to ENJOY the ACTUAL FLIGHT as we still taxi at 10:30. 10:41 ready for takeoff (landing 12:30 pm!). Off at 10:45 past 8 planes waiting behind us and at LEAST 8 gone off before. What an audience IF anything messed up! Off into a WELTER of cloud and turbulence, HORRIBLE first few minutes bouncing around, and finally by 11 I get courage to write, just as we enter ANOTHER shake-making layer! Some PRETTY men aboard! Vaguely lit cloud layer on left horizon, but seat doesn't move BACK to LOOK out window! NO window seats left up FRONT at 11:15, as I wander, but LAST seats empty (though back of plane jitters far more) and I sit to find my "partner" lost his luggage from SF, pushed his knapsack and his naked body out a second floor window in the Italian earthquake last year ("all chiefs, I'm a nurse but I couldn't help, so I stole a moped, rode north till it ran out of gas and caught a train north from Rome. Broke my back two years ago in a parachute jump, spent 14 months in a Medicine helicopter in Vietnam, sprained my ankle two days ago, going to Zurich with friends.) Whew! He leaves at 11:30, just came back to smoke, and I look out perfectly gray window, get soap and napkins when I piss, and get this to write at 12.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16. Once we're OFF, it's OK! Wine for $1.50, people talking. No aurora but HE saw it in Tennessee for 45 minutes when the Prefect woke them up one night! Can you BELIEVE this guy! WAS ONE star out the right window, but no more. Veal, WE agreed, had to be WORSE than the steak au poivre. But I was HUNGRY, nothing since eggs and salad at noon! Lots of white wine and brandy makes me feel good. CLOUDS visible, breaking up below. Movie at 1:45, sadly, is "Mirror Crack'd." Boo! Guy SAYS Omega was replaced and we're flying 7-hour route with a tailwind. 11:45 am? 2:15 comes and goes, halfway on the 7-hour trip. Encounter "Zurich" in "Pale Fire" at 3 am---about 6---should be getting light! Change watch six hours after sun rises. Ocean views, then total clouds at 10:30 Zurich time. Almost totally uniform low cloud-deck at 11 am. Announce we'll land about 11:40! 11:15 down INTO clouds, and it looks AWFUL thick and bumpy! CONFIRM in 72 hours! Land 11:40 after BUMPY flight in and out of clouds, taking LOTS of pictures, hoping they come out! 42 F. Sweaty palms! Rain on airfield. Green POLIZAI ARMORED TANK with machine gun and two soldiers---KIDS---on top! Into terminal at 12, beginning to feel tired. Luggage seems to START fast but GO slow. Bag's OPEN and strap's GONE and inner segments OPEN at 12:15. Buy three tickets: first to Winterthur, wrong; second to Zurich HB, then at 12:32 decide 12:48 can WAIT till I get 40F ticket for Milan! Off at 12:49, through tunnel, past NEAT RICH suburbs and LOTS of houses on hill, but it looks VERY "lowering" over city and feels CHILLY, so I'm making myself glad I'm leaving now before I even SEE it. Into station at 12:58 and from track 15 I have to go to track 1, then almost to front to train to find 2nd class nonsmoking without any people in it, at 1:06 HOPING train will CONTINUE frontwards out of station---as it should, since station goes SOUTH and Milan is south. NICE train leaves RIGHT at 1:10, WATER down window but it's not RAINING. Both trains VERY quiet and smooth. Mirrors above OPPOSITE seat permit me to see MY bags above MY head. Great! It's all tailored and beautiful: even FACTORIES are clean and neat and gable-roofed. Along lovely lake, but low-hanging clouds don't help view much. Lots of 2.5-3-minute tunnels. At last: an unkempt wooded-fallen area! Extraordinary CHARM! Lavish apartments in STEPS down a hillside; villages on SPINES of hills over lake; restaurants OVER road at lake edge. FABULOUS! Lovely OLD moss-roofed wooden HOUSES. How TONS more interesting and beautiful than RUSSIA! Raining now. LONG to take pictures but DON'T: windows WEST, too GRAY a view and NO sky. Even OLD snow is clean! Well, snow IS dark along ROADSIDES, but GRAY, not BLACK. Occurs to me in SCHWYZ that W IS "double V." Incredible ENGINEERING on hills to control and channel avalanches. SNOWING as we climb at 2:40. LONG tunnel past Goshenen smells MUSTY and DUST forms outside windows. UNBELIEVABLE snow scenes! And the ROADS they're building MATCH the mountains! Various train cars SING in PITCHES as they pass. At 3:30 the sun shines UNDER the clouds above the Alps. Drizzling as we stop in Bellinzona at 3:35, and a TRAIN comes along the track that the boarders have to cross to get to this one. Toward Lugano, nearer Italy, the Swiss perfection breaks down: weeds, dirt, and debris. Italy's SKY, however, is CLOUDLESS. ONLY passport checked in Chiasso. Sun set by the time the train moves out at 4:50. Darker and darker. In, nodding, at 6 pm and get $50 changed and buy gittoni and phone Marina. Take taxi to Numa Pompilia in crowded streets and she and I speak French and Sandra (big Sandra) laughs and chatters. Pretty baby, too. Edgardo arrives and we chat and he says friends are coming to look at home. My private room is pleasant, apartment is huge and kitchen just lovely. Eat sausage, take bath, unpack, eat dinner, drink wine, get tired. Sara and Ezio arrive at about 9:30, talk a lot, I get to bed 10:30. Sleep very well, bed just long enough and a bit too soft.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17. Wake at 8 am, bit chilly, and dress, as Lydia arrives at 8:30. Edgardo makes me good eggs "heated" in pots, and coffee and toast. Last night, pear was TOTALLY delicious, the cauliflower for lunch equally fantastic. I unpack stuff and Edgardo studies Sicily to recommend itinerary. Out at 10:30 to friend's inner court and small sightseeing and get to Duomo and La Scala for tickets for me for 18th for Swan Lake and 19th for Piccolo Scala and told to return at 10 am tomorrow to try to get tickets for Lohengrin for Sunday. Walk back via martini cocktail with Campari and at 1:15 we have lunch and Edgardo goes to work and Marina brings a client into my room. I walk back to Poldi Pezzoli Museum 3:30-5 after climbing 180 steps to Duomo top and staring out over town. Some SEXY guys around. Museum has lots of nice paintings, and out at 5 to return to Galleria and sit in Restaurant Biffi Bar till 7 watching passersby. Watch and hear water-tube fountain play, get cruised by a commercial self-salesman, and have a beer for 2500. Oh, Edgardo took me to bank when I cashed $250 in AM. Cold at last, crowd not THAT good, though some medieval Italian-male faces are great. Back at 7:30 to read book, Edgardo enters and has a client who goes to john twice, and at 8:15 he says we're joining little Sandra for music. Leave at 8:30 and pick her up at a bistro and drive WAY out by 9:10 to an English church for English carols, but he leaves at 9:30 and we drive to Il Verdi, crowded, and walk to Banco, cooler now, and from 10-12:30 have three bottles of wine for five people and GOOD veal for me and "pork African Queen" for two people and tasty paté and Dennis is CHARMING and he and Geejo sing together from the Sutherland-Horne repertory and we're talking English and VERY cheerful. English Dennis is putting up a show as lights go out. Ed has no keys, I have his, and they offer to let me go to THEIR apartment, but Dennis English has to pack and leave tomorrow and Geejo is very drunk and Dennis Italian keeps talking about assholes so he probably fucks or gets fucked. Tired and Ed drives Geejo to HIS car, Sandra to HER car and me home at 1:30, saying it's usual. Up to brush teeth---gums starting to bleed!---and shit, read book on Venice with male crotches around and go to bed at 2 am, two blankets, instantly asleep.
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18. Wake at 8, still somewhat tired, and up at 8:30 as Lydia buzzes in and Ed's gone already. Wash face and at 9 have one egg and coffee and toast and a VERY red-pulp orange and out to walk in rain to get to knot of people around La Scala at 9:58. In at 10:02, third in line for Lohengrin and get FOUR Box 7 seats for 44,000 each! Triumph! Check times and prices and "only" 125,000 left, having spent 13,200 on orchestra of Piccolo Scala and only 5,500 for Swan Lake in SKY. Walk to Brera and pay 750 to enter (US 2500 for Poldi Pezzoli!) and at first it's quiet and then FLOCKS of school kids pass through echoing. So MANY virgins and childs and saints and angels and Christs and crosses and artistic backgrounds! A real RELIEF to find a Myth of Calumnia or a Van Dyke! Most rooms brightly lit (plan on p. 10) and I roam past "best" room from 11 am, sit at 12:15 and write till kids released with a SHOUT at 12:40 and the place is a-ROAR as I finish this. I'm still flesh-watching on oils and jean-watching on tourists. Felt like jerking off last night but it was just too LATE. Told everyone I'd stay out all day today, even in rain. Note act-schedule in inside front cover. Shouts fade away by 12:49. Il Peschericcio lunch: gambernetti are shrimp and calamari are octopus, and castagna (chestnut) dessert HARD for 1000. Total 10,000, gave 11,500. Out at 2:40, not full, and to Sforza Castle to go to A, then to B, walk to Underground Stone Age exhibit, then to C, get told to go to A, and there get told to go to B! Pissed! As I am with "guard" who stares mildly at me as I almost fall stepping down a step I didn't know was there! AND with the guy who stops me taking a flash of the Rondanini Pieta JUST as I was set for it! OLD ruins, tapestries, then upstairs to ENORMOUS Pinacoteca Civica, then to glass, ceramics, gold and silver, instruments, gowns, LOADS of stuff!! Down at 5 (SNOWING all day!) to find desk CLOSED, NOT at 5:20. Sit in Salotta 5:20-6:40 with beer for 3000, walk back to find Scala Grill closed, NEXT place closed, and have pizza at Ciardi with EGG and ham and beer for 8000. To not-bad seat for 8000 program (5500 for SEAT!) and good Savignano and NEW Pierin. Stark production, not much applause, second males poor, not much sex. Rothbart nicely hammy. Out at 11 and get LOST walking back, so grab cab for 3000 and get to bed at 11:45 for a change, leaving Edgardo a note that I'm TIRED.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19. Up at 9 for ONE egg from Lydia, and chat with Marina and look out at market and talk to Edgardo's father and the blind man's "cane": Edgardo returns at 1:30, I do lightwork 12:20-1:40, join them for lunch, then he drives me in LOVELY weather to Central Station to get reservations for Milan-Rome at 7:50 am Monday, and Naples-Palermo 9:15 am Tue, no Wed reservations left. ALSO, phone Jean-Jacques and talk to Marcello and Marina hates phoning. Marina's out to shop, I get itinerary from Edgardo and he makes me pizza and I leave at 7:35 for Piccolo Scala and get LOTS, going around place to get in at 8:05 and it starts at 8:10! "Vanitas" is 53 minutes of surrealism the audience hates, then GREAT stage torn apart for 35 minutes for Varietes, till 10:50 and pitting attention to MAGIC against watching CIRCUS. Interesting. Walk back, Edgardo has to get out of bed to take HIS keys out of the door to let me in. Jerk off nicely till 12:30.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20. Up with them at 8:30, breakfast, and I drive to Certosa di Pavia, good monastery (I'm bored with writing). Back at 12:30 to a quick lunch of steak and finochio, sitter arrives at 2:05, drive to La Scala for "Lohengrin" 2:30-7. Almost the only elements of the set are an ENORMOUS quartet of pillars reflected off mirrors in the back, with a foil floor that reflects what little light there is. There's no swan, merely loads of people and a few men riding phony horses, and a lot of good singing by mostly everyone, and the audience goes quite mad over the whole thing. The box is terribly uncomfortable: I thought I was buying the whole box, but there's a student-type sitting in THE seat, who kindly offers to share it, so we switch, though standing in back doesn't get much of the stage. Sandra meets me out front, I buy her a martini for 2200 with me, drive to Dennis's new place where they fix bony fish on underdone spaghetti and GREAT salad and good wine and panettone cake, and they SING to click-click of Sandra making four tracks of coke on her mirror for inhaling with 10,000 note, smiling industriously and goonily to herself while Dennis and Geejo go through aria after aria with hand-waving precision. Geejo takes HALF of one and I take the half left. Sneeze, bitter taste in throat, SLIGHT high, but not much. JOY of evening, however. To second party, smoke bidi, like some of the people, get an address of a lovely guy (and girl) in Bergamo, and Sandra drives me home by 12:30. I say "Sorry I was such a lazy host in NYC." She puzzles "What you say?" I say, "I want to THANK you for a GREAT time." She quietly floors me by saying "Well, I had a good time TOO." Never THOUGHT of that! WORTHLESS is UP for me. Park and pack and sleep at 1, leaving blinds up to wake me in morning.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 21. (Written on train): From a HIGH high to a LOW low---Sunday in Milan fabulous: Certosa di Pavia, lunch of steak and Finnochio with Caverzasis , Lohengrin from 2:30-7, lovely dinner with "the best salad" with Dennis and Geejo, and then a party with people on other page, Niggeler-Marchettini/ Via Milano 14 ph (035) 237725, 24100 Bergamo, and my first cocaine. THEN Edgardo isn't up by 7:30 and I lug luggage out and there's no CABS! Finally at 7:40 one comes and turns and avoids traffic and waits for lights and pedestrians and I agitate and leap into station at 7:54! FIRST departing train marked "Rome Express 7:55," so I dash for that and places are filled and I sit outside a long line of locked second class lit and warm behind locks, and I sit dejected on jump seat in cold aisle in gray AM. Leave about 8 am. Self-service attendant mentions there's a seat, but I can't think of words to say "But I want a window seat in a non-smoking compartment facing the direction of travel (WSND)." Brood for a few more minutes, but decide to check and THERE'S a WSND!! Two Loyola girls at corridor and three Italians and MY seat WAITING! Things look up! 3250 breakfast of 800 sandwich, 650 tea, 750 yogurt, and 1050 hunk of cheese. Better! Family leaves at Bologna, girls at Florence, and I have hot car to self! BUT it's not in at 3:05 but 3:30 on track 5. Track 10 contains TOTALLY JAMMED passengers to Reggio Calabria, so though I travel LENGTH of train, there's NO place even to STAND. I decide to spoil myself but can't find "prenotatzione stand." Determine to bull way aboard, feeling DOWN! Attendant's outside with stubs, I say "Prenotatione?" he says "Si" and I say "Finestre?" and I get seat 45 at WINDOW, though probably going backward. VERY civilized crew and wedding-banded nodding paper-reader across from me vaguely cruising. So GENTEEL compared with standing jammed in an aisle for 2 hours, though at 4:03 we're not left YET. At 4:04 I move FRONTWARD! Holy SHIT! GREAT sight of modern train paralleling us in front to HUGE brick arches, about 80-100 feet high, from old aqueduct and modern apartment blocks. Fit of SNEEZING hits in train, to go along with sore throat I THOUGHT was coke but MIGHT be cold-start! At 4:40 it's REALLY getting dark---cloudy---and ROCKS begin appearing in rich black-earth-plowed fields or spring-green acres. LOTS of tunnels all day, some LOVELY hilltop towns like Crotona and Orvieto and Sezze Romana. First train was express to Florence, then maddeningly local. Also the AGONY of thinking the train LEAVING Florence was going back NORTH and not south to Rome, due to strange sign changes on side of car. But SECOND train seems not to stop as mountains close in from east and the SEA appears in the west as it gets QUITE dark, too dark to see anything but silhouettes, by 5 pm. Too EARLY! Only BARELY light at 7 am this morning, too. JUST occurs to me that THIS sunset, 12/21, is the EARLIEST one of the year! TOTALLY dark out of long tunnel at 5:20 pm. It's so BLACK outside that I get UP TO DATE (7 days gone!) by 5:40, eager to get into unseen Naples. HAVE a cold, dammit! Stop on tracks 6:05-6:15. Black. In at 6:25, lug luggage through jammed noisy streets to Palace Hotel, Pugliese and Ideal looking ratty. A single for 2400, he says, but says "Fifty" for room 104 and I try it, but NOT surprised to find 5th contains 501-515. Down to FIRST to find 104, small, comfortable, BIG bathroom for the tiny room. Get out map and restaurant list and decide on Dante and Beatrice (Note MAN first, typical of Italy?), the only one that has NEAPOLITAN specialties. Feel ill, so take a pill. Out at 7:30, hotel restaurants looks awful for 8900 fixed price, and out to streets. Flea markets just packing it in, lots of shouts and bargaining and showing of things and folds. Cluster of gypsy-like people arguing around blazing embers of a fire at the curb at their feet, keeping warm. Smell of smoke and the garbage that's EVERYWHERE. EVERYONE walks in streets, sidewalks full of shops, cars, or trash. Around Municipal Building where they're building a huge wooden stall of some sort, and Via Tribunale is a GREAT intro to Naples: narrow, crowded, lots of foot and car and motorcycle traffic, shops spilling over, many closing, everyone shouting and running and laughing. Churches mortared shut and shopkeepers dumping baskets of garbage and scraps and liquids and junk in front of them. Gated churches on "rococo tour." Clothes hanging from buildings, dogs and cats snuffling everywhere, plazas blocked by huge cement-block "piazettas" for cars and more track. Kids and old people and sexy guys all mixed in. At last to empty restaurant, good spinach-meat soup for 2000, frittura mista has a FISH and squid and shrimp, and "all wine in bottle" for 1500, not bad. Only CHOICE is "red or white" and dolce. I pay ONLY 10,000 on bill. More enter, loud talk, lots of food. Back by way of "nativity scene" sellers, very colorful. To hotel and jerk off quickly and get to bed at 9:30. MANY fragmented, rather nice, dreams, and wake at 1:40 to drink and piss, then up with a jolt at 8:15, not much time to train!
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22. 2400 bill less 300 for having no breakfast. AGAIN there's a hassle: walk across Plaza and follow sign ALLA STAZIONE PLAZA GARIBALDI. But NO signs below! Ask someone and he says UPSTAIRS. Go up and look along tracks and binario 2 is WAY off to side and has NO announcement, while 3 and 4 have announcements for 9:30 and 10. Anger! Back to sign (now 9:06) and there's clearly marked in white 2PG. Ask a woman and she says downstairs! Down again for DIFFERENT place and there's a TINY sign for binario 1. AH! Continue along and what do I find? Binario 3 & 4. Back with INTENT! Only 1. Ask someone for binario 2, she looks uncertain, points down 1. I go down 1 and people are GOING across track to little train on binario 2. Now 9:11. Four cars to train, NO markings. Ask girls and they don't understand "A Palermo?" Ask man and wife, THEY are going. Wait. At 9:15 a four-car train pulls out and a two-car train pulls in, dark. Look at man who shrugs and says "Retardo." "Incerto" says wife, and I say "Tutto incerto." And man says something about the holidays, probably. Fuzzy announcement, wife waves hands and says "No capito." Still waiting at 9:25. Edgardo was right. I may NEVER have caught the 1400 from Rome in 12 minutes. They listen again and it's 30 minutes late. Other people run across other tracks for other trains. At another fuzzy announcement everyone moves 20 feet down platform. It arrives 9:35, everyone flocks aboard, my seat 75 is by a MILK-WHITE window, smoking section, going BACKWARD. But only 6-7 people are entire CAR, so when conductor floats past I ask if I can change and he says YES, so I move to a CLEAR window going FORWARD in NO smoking car already ALL reserved, now ALL empty! Take pictures for first time since Milan. Another VERY long tunnel before Salerno, in at 10:18, 20 minutes late. Sky cloudy but with BREAKS of bright sun and clear sky. First class last NIGHT was very nice, though all in the dark. THIS first class about as cruddy as SECOND class I enjoyed at the start of yesterday. Not many people getting on, either. LOTS of oranges on trees, lots of new greenery under plastic greenhouse tops OUTSIDE in yards, even growing FIELDS. BRIGHT sun on Salerno. Deep voiced woman rips open door with the hand that does NOT hold a -filled baby bottle and holds out hand saying "Da--babi." I say no and she flops out with a hoarse phrase. Streets in Naples were WET and the fields are muddy. Stop, not on schedule, at Battipaglia, near Paestum. Lots of surf on beaches. Many GRAPE FIELDS yesterday. Many ruined or current villas and castles on picturesque hilltops. They're harvesting cabbages. Lots of different SMALL vegetables growing: carrots, lettuce, herbs. RED-ORANGE earth shows through. Woman wearing sweaters only to keep warm. MORE tunnels. Trees LOADED with oranges, ground FULL of them. Cactus on hills! Conductor tries to get 18,000 MORE from me and I simply say NO and he jabbers on more and then leaves. I check place where it says NO extra charge. At 11:20, train is along LOVELY coast when not in tunnels. Hungry but wait for HOT lunch. We stop for a long time (11:25-11:29) in S. Mauro La Bruna and I ALMOST get another pen, but it starts writing again. Lunch 12-12:30, steak and mushrooms, beans, yogurt, beer for 6900. Nice small beach towns. SNOW-covered peaks here. Leave Paeta 20 minutes late. Lot BEING BUILT in Falerna. Gioia Tauro is 50 minutes late! Sky all gray. Bougainvilla growing in Scilla. Begin to wonder HOW we cross the channel. At 3 we stop. People get off; people stay on. Decide to change my faltering pen, since this old one is just about out. Some streets wet. I read. At LAST at 4:10 we move! Stop a minute later! Move AGAIN at 4:36, sunset lightening clouds over Sicily. All that in Villa San Giovanni. Stop at 4:40. BACKWARDS at 4:54---2 cars, ours without lights, second with, cut off from all others. No conductor to put ON lights. We're loaded in three sections aboard ferry and leave 5:10, circling around for head to head slip, and crossing to complete blackness takes till 5:40, just half an hour of some REAL waves, washing over breakfront, and watch engine pull us off into Messina station just at 6. Lights FINALLY on at 6:07, after I'm joined by someone across the way. Leave station at 6:17, DUE at 3:57, "just" 2 hours 20 minutes late! In at 9:40? Long dark trip, with lights in distance. In at 9:35 and out to gypsy cabs that start at 10,000, then THEY say 5,000, so I say 4,000 and it's a 4-minute RIDE. First to Hotel Sole, but it's ACROSS from Plaza Partenza (?), so I see Centrale and direct cab there. 19,500 for single. I look at map and NO close restaurant, so I walk up DESERTED Via Marqueda and on Via Orologia find a sign for a Ristorante Italiana and have Zuppa alla pavese (broth and bread and poached egg!) and fatty sgaloppini in wine and an apple and wine for 7500. Walk back streets to hotel, phone JJ at 11:10, and jerk off with lots of tension and fall asleep at 12:15.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23. Wake at 7 and doze IN light till 7:40, at which point it's raining. Shower and get out at 8:30 to walk to station in slight rain in ten minutes. Pasticceria sells ciocolatta al latte for 700 and panini con prosciutto for 900. Not bad at all. Onto 9:08 train that leaves at 9:15, in about 12, conductor LOVING to talk about my travels while my feet freeze. Lots of clouds, Segesta temple encased in a reconstruction grid. Erice covered with clouds, and a man working on the train says he'll take me to the bus after the conductor says the funicular is broken. 12:55 bus and lots of choices back. I wander toward church, but 50 minutes isn't enough. Back to try a few trattorias, closed, and the town looks not interesting but for one pair of nice jeaned legs. Cold and windy, but sun COULD be warm if clouds LET it. Get a chopped meat sandwich for 500 and chocolate for 700 and back to bus station as Erice bus drives in at 12:50 and I get front right seat. Vietato fumare, but it smells like SOMEONE on the bus smokes CIGARS. Cloud STILL over Erice---either it'll STILL be there or it's saving its sun for me. Still there, but it comes and goes over lower countryside. Great shots---funny if this would be EITHER 1) the MOST spectacular place of the trip or 2) so totally irrelevant compared with the rest of the trip that the 17 shots are a total waste. (Actually, of course, the final result was neither of the above.) Almost everything's closed: castle, smaller castle, toretta, churches, duomo; I don't even have the patience to follow road to Porto Carmine and see more of the Muri Elemi Punichi. Clouds lighten up a bit before end, but there's still a fuzz of black over peak as I leave. See bus go up road at 3, so I finish my pictures and join it, changing film. Bus back hosts kid in GREAT jeans and TRApani is getting muggy. Bus goes down and up almost every street in town, including a corner with a tipped-over motor scooter on it. To terminal at 4, have a salami and two candy bars for 950 in all, and board single-car doodlebug for Palermo at 4:23: 32 second-class in front, 16 first-class in center, 24 second-class in back, plus crew of 3 for 75 in one car, capacity, about 20 of us as is, three in first class. Nestle's Ciokita tasty but small for 240, chocolate over rice over caramel; Motta Amigo is only 200, but only 25g. As we roar out of Trapani at 4:30, black cloud is HIGHER over Erice than before. Train travels over MUCH of the middle distance I took pictures of, sheep-side. Cliffs of Erice look MUCH LESS STEEP from below: ROSES blooming, squash drying on roofs. It's true I'm farther WEST and the sky IS clearer, but it's lighter LATER now (also 12/23, not 12/21). Segesta Temple seen for only 3-4 seconds from speeding train, AFTER station for Palermo-bound passengers. Rocky and noisy and VERY speedy-seeming. Let's see if we're in before 7! GETTING dark at 5:05. Considerably over halfway at 5:15! Alcamo, an INLAND route. Can see NOTHING of Edgardo's DOTS from the train. Silhouettes and lights only remain at 5:25. So 5:30 is STILL too late to drive! Well, he writes, petulantly, influenced by Kinbote in "Pale Fire," if it were darker IN (the train) it would be lighter OUT(side the window). I make list of Green Guide sights NOT closed on holidays: Garibaldi Gardens**, churches*, Villa d'Aumale*, Monte Pellegrine**. MY girl enters another conversation, gets wished "Auguri" by some big wheel, answers a question from someone who comes with two US $2 bills, tries to get a check-canceller fixed, and talks to two other officers. SHE waves to me by her boss. OTHERS shout "Quando" and guy behind glass shouts back he doesn't KNOW. We had to leave us out the BACK door. Dead cats on road; dog shit on pavements, some streets stink of garbage, parks PLEASANT. Plastic fragments of tail lights litter streets; cars park on sidewalks EVERYWHERE. Christmas Day---Lunch 3-3:15 of two ham and cheese toasted and beer and canoli, dinner of pizza splendor and two beers and pastry for 35,000. Room when we find it for 28,000 in Motel di Sciacca, spelt Xacca on some signs, making sense. Day of travel to Segesta, there 11-12, temple and amphitheater and GREAT books for 5000 apiece. Then VERY lost, searching for lunch in Caletafimi and Salemi, and then to Santa Ninfa with trattoria. Down to Selinunte in almost-dark, then long winding road to Sciacca, getting lost IN town, and finally find Motel, restaurant Scandalloto for pizza and wander town till bed at 11:15, after reading.
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26. Wake with INCREDIBLE dreams of 1) visiting LUXURIOUS apartments, host of which is someone like Bob Rosinek, who's KEEPING me, 2) meeting with three women who turn out to be Jane Alexander, actress; Jane Fonda, movie star, and a BLACK Marilyn Horne, diva superba. 3) GREAT sex with Malcolm in which I come first, encourage him to "take his turn" and he gets me so excited I almost come again until I start urging HIM to come. We shower, I watch sunrise, taking pictures of sunrise, we walk to Garden Hotel for breakfast, drive through town to highway back to Selinunte, and get in at 9:45 for a guide who takes us AROUND the temples, telling of construction and roofing and perspective and history and the "selinus plant" like parsley that gave the name to the place---DRY in summer! Then drive to acropolis and wander large ruins, hunters firing, and back to car at 11:45 to drive AWFUL way again to Manfi to highway to Agrigento and pass temples to Jolly Hotel for 31,000 lunch in huge empty room. Back to ruins but we both seem TIRED. Through and to Akrobello Hotel at 5 for 60,000 pension-plan and warm with heater and take bath and I compare two books to find only THREE pictures in common. Bathe to warm and read and down to AWFUL dinner in cold (but nice) dining room---tiny pineapple on bland prosciutto, his lasagna mediocre, my chicken leg small and tasteless, his involtini terrible sausage meat. Dessert cassata filling and sweet---he says vitamin C keeps one AWAKE. Up at 9:15 after looking at stars and to room to read to 12:20 and sleep, not TOO cold after ordering two more blankets.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27. Dream of being in country, but it's catching on fire in various places and George Parris and I catch a cab and I think bill is 5000 LIRE and it's 500, and he pays with a bill and I return coins. We think where to go and he's still fumbling with wallet when BEARS come out of woods. I can't think of how to tell him and run, and he turns and there's a standoff as I wake at 5:20. Up again at 6:20 and finish in bathroom at 6:40 (from p. 41: Hotel San Giovanni, 21,000, no hot water nor receipt. Bellini's tomb: Ah non credea mirarti---si presto e stinto o fiore," with music.) JJ's out at 7:10 and at 7:15 restaurant's still closed. They open it, sun rises, we eat, leave for center of town for Duomo, which is closed. Down to museum for opening at 9, and there's LOTS: vases and pottery and archeological exhibits and LOVELY asses on athletes and huge Zeus metope and three remaining heads. Lots more from nearby necropoli than we'd thought. Out at 9:50 and get to highway but miss turnoff to Serradifalco and up tiny road to Santa Cataldo, in which we get lost and I start getting aggravated (again) at 1) the lack of proper signs (left arrow SOMETIMES meaning straight and SOMETIMES meaning left), 2) the INCREDIBLE drivers who take EVERY possible liberty and then look innocent when they're met with a car going the PROPER direction, someone who's angry at their stupidity, or a bus or taxi that's SUPPOSED to be in their lane, or the cyclists that take EVERY risk and expect the cars to take care for their safety---AND pedestrians who do the same. Anyway, good views back over city from hill, then almost get lost in Caltanisetta three or four times, then high road over GREAT views of fields and Etna, VERY snowy toward the west. Onto poor and winding road to Lago di Pergusa and up to Enna at 1:30 for a GREAT lunch at Centrale with FABULOUSLY seasoned roast fungi, good salad, good meat and GREAT melon. Down highway to Piazza Amerina (me driving) and it's later and darker when we get to mosaics of Casale at 3:30, taking pictures till 4:30, buy book AND slides for 6500, and taking HUGE shit, and having to drive BACK to town and south on road, almost getting lost in San Michele di Ganzaria and in Caltagirone and in Grammichele when they don't have the highway finished, and pitch black on AWFUL road until we get to southbound highway to Ragusa, and get lost on way into town, then IN town, and find that the Jonico has no HEAT and no hot water and finally find the San Giovanni after getting lost driving to IT. Then back and look in Alimentari and Gastronomici and Trattoria and Beer and Hot Dog and Tavola Calda before FINALLY finding Padroni's, GREAT sexy crowd for GOOD pizza, then back in rain to COLD room and sleep.
MONDAY, DECEMBER 28. JJ's up first and we don't shower and get out at 7:45. Have breakfast at Ragusa Duomo coffee shop and wander streets and then drive to Ibla Duomo and wander MORE streets and get lost more times and finally drive WAY around and find way out to Modica for cathedral and building facades and JJ wanders streets and then into car for long drive through deserted territory to Noto for more churches and cathedral and buildings and driving and traffic jams and ashwardens (?) in car. Finally through Avala (I'm eating chocolate bar for sustenance) and into Siracusa about 1, AWFUL busy streets and fine Jolly Hotel and take pension, putting stuff in warm room and down to dining room for lunch, good roast chicken for me but not a great meal for 30,000. Everything's closed Monday so we walk to old city and Duomo isn't open till 4 so we see Fountain of Arethusa and south to Maniace and see poor CATS on beach and around to viewpoint for surf and back to Duomo and walk back to hotel and we're TIRED at 5, so I take a good soaking bath 5:30-6:45, changing clothes first time in FOUR days, and he showers and I read red guide for NORTH Italy and we're out at 8:15 to walk PAST railroad to Jonio for GOOD vegetables, shark for me, roast cheese, HARD bread (mostaciula) and cakes dropped into sherry for dessert. Back NEW way and sleep about 11:15, EXHAUSTED.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29. Up to shit and find it's 7:30 and breakfast comes at 7:35 and we're eating and out at 8:15 and he goes to post office and we go to bank 8:50-9:20 to give him 200,000 and me 350,000L! Oh, MUSEUM was marked closed 9-11 for "assembly" of workers deciding to strike! Go to Museo Bellomo 9:20-10:15, main Messina painting IN Messina! Some nice stuff and OLD wood panels. Drive (lost AGAIN!) to Archeological area and it opens at 11:15 and to Greek theater and ear of Dionysius and out at 11:45 and back to MUSEUM for GREAT male bodies and SO many vases and calyxes and heras and lamps and glassware and spearheads and knobs and money it's IMPOSSIBLE to comprehend. Nice lunch 1-2:30 at Minerva of vegetable soup for me and lasagna for him and pork chop for me and frito mixta for him and house wine. Out in car AGAIN through city proper, onto highway taking Etna pictures, and get into Catania at 3:30 and head (VERY indirectly: ENWSW!) for Teatro Bellini, around to side, and ask worker for "biglietti" and he says he'll show us inside for nothing! Lights lit, red plush carpets, and up to top salon for GREAT pictures and statue of Bellini. Out dazzled and happy, walk to Duomo, instrumentalists setting up and permitting us to see carved choir stalls, out to walk LOTS of streets and Via Etna and sexy people and back to car at 5:15 to get LOST AGAIN and on highway north and decide to get off at Acireale. Lost THERE, only "Ristorante Panoramica" in red Michelin showing we're NORTH of Acireale and drive THROUGH town SEVEN ways, all WRONG, and FINALLY see sign for "La Perla Ionico" and it says 1500 meters and we go so far we GIVE UP and make U-turn INTO ARROW (on the other side of the street) for La Perla! 64,000 for GOOD room but LOUD neighbors. 6:55 pm: So hard to think what to WRITE! With JJ licking stamps for his six last cards and the bed of the next room being fucked so hard that the headboard hits the wall behind our heads. I even forget to record 12/28 dream of being with---some old person I FORGOT now---and enjoying young men who liked being with him. I catch up at 8:05, ready for dinner! To restaurant (unmarked from main lobby except as "door down last long corridor") and down three flights to find bare echoing space filled with awful people. Waiter accosts us for "tickets." We say "What?" He explains we must buy chits from desk. No way! Back to car and to town and from newsstand to closed pizzeria to ONLY pasticheria to La Bella for JJ's Pizza Capriciosa (same stuff as Padrino) and my tagliatella alla Bella with wurst and ham and mushrooms and beans and artichokes and my saltimbocca alla Romana with cheese and SMALL ham and veal and salad capriciosa and we leave for 12,000 and drive back easy way and bed at 11:30, BLAZING up so that they laugh and JJ knocks ONCE and they stop and we sleep, I guess, OK.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 30. Wake about 6 and watch room lighten and up at 6:40 to shower and out at 7:10 to photo sunrise and pack and sit on terrace in DIRTY white chair (JJ suspiciously quiet in bathroom so I'll not ask for a white towel to dirty on the chair) and look at Ionian and scattered clouds and flowers and hotel space and the lighthouse and enumerate the FLAWS of Perla: emergency cord hard to reach behind sink in bathroom, raised shower leaks and I bark knuckles turning on shower tap and what's strange CLAW in lieu of soap tray for? Look thirty seconds before finding flush UNDER railing at TOP, and later when I REACH for it I find myself trying to turn a bit of decorative edging. No place for used towels save on wall prongs, duct doesn't prevent steaming, toilet takes AGES to fill for second flushing, the CLOSET lights (always on when room lights on) is brighter to read by than dim BED lamp, and ROOM lights must be turned on from BED, WAY into room. No GOOD place for luggage: JJ's large bag on DESK, mine on TINY chest of drawers stuck in FRONT of mirror. No HANDLE for balcony door on OUTSIDE, so it must be left OPEN to grasp EDGE; rope on draperies broke so they remain open a crack and are partly pulled off hooks. Already noted that WALLS are VERY thin through connecting door. ALL doors have a "press down to open knob" device that's IMPOSSIBLE to use quietly without disturbing neighbor, let alone roommate, and door on SHOWER is hard to close (clicks twice still OPEN) and hard to OPEN because of sharp little handle. Usual sheet-towel complaint (save at JOLLY), but it's QUIET outside, anyway. Sun brightening for assault on Etna at 7:45. How'll BREAKFAST here be? OK, large room and all-French tour our companions. Off to Etna at 8:30. See ONE sign for Etna going south, but after that there's nothing at all. Almost back to Catania before we find signs and even then we get lost in one town and have to ask a woman, who points down the road that Etna looms above. FINALLY get into pattern of bright yellow signs and up winding dark-stone-lined road past chipper villages and up finally to snow in the gullies and then show in the fields, some areas denuded of vegetation, some with villas surrounded by old trees. To windswept tourist plaza with only two of ten shops open and get to entrance booth to find funicular not working because of WIND! Look at all the skiers and tourists and then drive down through lesser roads to Giarre and drive along coast to Taormina. Up crowded road through town proper and continue up to Castelmolo, road blocked by meat truck, and I find parking space and we're out to climb to very top by noon for a glorious view over whole area except cloudy coast of Italy proper. Tambourine girl leaves at last and we're alone on top, enjoying view. Down to Il Maniero for lunch of GREAT antipasto with the discovery of Pomodoro Secco, BOAR steak, and Grand Marnier with JJ's cigars on the balcony in the warm sun. Down about 3 to the Public Gardens, just west of Jolly Hotel, and I fall in LOVE with the place and its characters and flowers and views and cliffhanging houses. Woman on boat later says Dominican Hotel snobby and pricey, but PLACE is one of the best in the world. He says it's rather like Haut de Cagnes and St. Paul de Vence. To Greek theater at 4:15 to find it closed at 3:30. "Two hours before sunset, by law." I argue, but get nowhere. Back to wander more, get lost, wander down stairs past hippies and drive back to highway to take beach road through small lovely towns by dark and then on the highway to get to Messina Hotel Jolly by 6:10. As we sign in I search and search for passport, wondering if anyone in lovely Taormina could have robbed me or if I've dropped it, but then JJ remembers we didn't get them back from Perla Ionica! So by 6:20 we're on road for CENTER of Messina and enjoy sweep of lights on Taormina and fumble through area around Acireale before getting passports at 7:30. Then back on road after division of opinion about HOW to get back, and back to Messina and hotel by 8:50. To room and to restaurant for mediocre meal by AWFUL waiters. Bed about 10:30.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31. Wake about 8 and breakfast and walk along coast, too long, to museum which closes regular exhibits and shows ONLY Antonella de Messina works, mainly in transparencies more bright than originals. Taxi to Duomo for doors and clock, then back to hotel to GET passports and pay 81,000 and get to highway for Milazzo at 12:10, finding that next aliscafi to Vulcano is at 2:45. Eat in the one-star Il Gardino, good appetizer and odd mixed grill of guinea, chicken, and lamb. Sit in sun and read and get on back of boat for a sunny windy ride past Stromboli and Lipari to Vulcano at 3:35, and I get on rocky trail, leaving JJ behind in poor shoes, and pant and puff and enjoy view and inhale sulfur and sweat in heat and get to rim of crater at 4:10, enjoying sunlit islands, sulfur-crusted crest, and sparkling crystals at exit-vent of crater. Down in a dusty scrabble by 5, buy tickets for return 5:10-5:55 through pink-orange-yellow sunset brilliance, talking to jabbery woman from Wantagh. He drives long trafficky road through Milazzo and I take wheel at highway, which gives over to winding road 1/3 way there and only at Cefalu goes back to highway. Good views of moon. Into city and JJ takes over wheel and into hotel about 9. Drive north to park on sidewalk in front of Nuova Castelnuovo and HE enjoys the vegetable soup and I have a funny cup of shrimp and prosciutto under French dressing, and my tournedos are VERY good. Tired back to hotel by 11:40, noise of fireworks beginning, and we tour fountains and Bellini to find nothing doing, so back to room at 11:55 and are undressing at midnight when we wish each other Happy New Year and get to sleep instantly at 12:15.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 1982. Up at 9 and out for Monreale, stopping on Vittorio Emmanuale (I mention it's so long, JJ responds that with the Italian LENGTHENING of dimunitives it probably becomes Vittorioiorioni Emmanujallissiminni) for coffee and cake for 2500 and on for gas, then up road to apses and around to GREAT mosaics inside, and bishop starts mass at 11 as we enter jewel-encrusted treasury---it HAD been the relics of saints and now it's the value of gemstones? Out to plaza and horse cart and postcards and book, then down to St. Laurent for "half-crescent" arches and find Oratorio closed. To Charleston at 1:10 and wait till 1:40 for small table in BUSY place, LOADED with squally kids! And EVERY table FULL for two seatings! My cepelini varsovian are underdone-tasting crepes and HEAVY sauce, and he loves his lasagna and his goat-piece. My viel Conca d'Oro is good with wine and vegetables and cheese and eggplant. Good banana tort for dessert and he likes his flat torte-apple pie. Whole cigar leaves aftertaste, but good with Grand Marnier and a carafe of ice water for a largish bill (for trip) of 40,000. Out at 3 to Capucian cemetery and mummyerie 3:30-4, then get lost trying to find road to Monte Pelligrino and miss sunset and endure STRONG cold wind for pink clouds and blue sky and down at 5:45 to Viale Liberta to park car and see park and game-playing and promenade and like Chamade Restaurant's looks and sit and return to hotel 7:30-8:30 to lie in bed and recover. Out to Bellini for poor dinner and last stroll together and he leaves 6:45 wakeup call and we get to bed 10:45, loud outside.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 2. I wake at 3:30 with strange memory of dream of Japanese female tourists (city FULL of them) pressing themselves against me and me trying to feel through their hard crotches if they're male or female. We're watching a theatrical show and moving from seat to seat, like on a plane, for best view and most privacy. Then wake at 6 and call JJ at 6:45, two minutes before phone rings. We bid farewell stiffly, saying we enjoyed trip, he saying he has YET to return to United States; I'm welcome to Paris if I get tired of Italy, and he leaves at 7:15. I shit and look through green guide to find I have a LOT of two-star stuff to see in Palermo, and finish this up to date (cursing pigeons cooing like MAD and flapping away outside) at 8:10. Read some, breakfast in same place, to Palazzo Normanii and the Palatine Chapel is EXACTLY (to SAME Adam and Eve figures) same as Monreale, but 1/4 size. Great carved Easter candleholder 15' high! Second floor closed. Search for Villa Aumale and stumble on St. John the Hermit, VERY faint fresco inside, a jumble of gardens, pristine Norman arches and vaults. Across to D'Aumale and it's got BIRDS and deer and a formal garden and a ficus and statuary. Wander through old section and buy belt 130-140 cm, started at 8000, I say 4000, he says 5000, I GIVE him 4500. Colorful meats and vegetables and clothes markets, well lit and NO smell. To Archeological Museum and find a few good crotches, some interesting Etruscan interments, but Siracusa has it ALL over this EXCEPT for Selinunte ruins and LOTS of statues from Malosporus cemetery. Through quickly, mad at guard smoking in no-smoking rooms, lots of LARGE projects rather boring: Medusa from Solunto, lions from somewhere in wall border. Out and wander side streets to National Museum, Messinas IN Messina and LOADS of SAME Madonna del Latte (tits in kids' lips), Coronation of the Virgin and lots of Polytychs from Piazza Armerina by the Master of the Polytych from Piazza Armerina! Nice to see lots UNDER glass in NO frame, but most are in DARK room and VERY stilted; only as time gets more RECENT are figures good, and masterpiece is Jan Gossaert Van Mabuse (1478-1533) (Legato Malvagno), Madonna col Bambino tra SS. Caterina I Dorothea, and LOVELY Adam and Eve on BACK. I wonder how many of the "anonymous" paintings on dark walls would be MUCH more respected if they were said to be by "Master X". Out about 1 and find Orte Botanica is open sabado only 9-11. That does Palermo! No restaurants along way appeal. Look and find Reggio di Calabria museum open 9-1 Sunday and CLOSED on Monday! (Stop in Termini Imerese 2:49-2:53 ONLY. 3:13-3:16 Cefalu.) So I go to Calabria today! To station and THEY say 3 pm and I find 2:20, going MOST of way in daytime. To hotel at 1:35 and ask for bill, pack and find belt is BIT too small for bag, but it works with new hole. Down to pay 66,000 bill and wait for cab till 2, then take bus, can't figure how to pay, so I get off at station and DON'T. In and buy mineral water for 300 for thirst and panini con prosciutto for 900 for train. On at 2:10 and it's crowded (though not JAMMED) and I STAND in hall. Everyone smokes, so I keep window open. Babies shout as we stop in tunnel and someone has a RADIO yet. Everyone chats and I just FUME. One hour gone, but trip across will be a MESS again. But passing beach and mountain countryside is pleasant in bright sunlight and white clouds. Radio louder at Pollini stop at 3:34. Let's GO! Feet sore, tops of toes hurt from braking my way down from Vulcano day before yesterday, and I feel achy all over from standing. Sea gets higher and Mario-Lanza-type gets louder at 4:55 when we stop at San. Giorgio Anira in Messina at 6:22, half-hour late. Maybe I'll miss the NEXT train to Reggio? Bump about a bit at 7:17. Actually MOVE at 7:41; RAIN wetting tracks! ONTO ferry at 8 and at 8:05 I'm into cafe for two beers and two panini and we're sailing toward what SEEMS to be Reggio di Calabria! First train pulled off at 8:40, the time I finished "Pale Fire," the first book read, standing with suitcase ready to GET OFF---WHEREVER we are! Off ferry 8:45. Into Villa San Giovanni (damn!) at 9 pm. AND, as I hoped, at 9:02 the 8:55 to Reggio Calabria had NOT YET left from track 2, coming in on track 1 at 9:05! Two-car train starts south at 9:15, goes through blackness, NO tickets collected, into RC Centrale at 9:40. Sign says San Giorgio is 200 meters. I walk and there it IS, III class for 10,000 for 1! I WILL have enough money. Get map by 10:03! Establish 10-place itinerary (for COMPLETED viewing by 12) by 10:30. By then it's VERY cold and by 10:45 I'm in a decently comfortable bed.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 3. Wake at 7 and out of bed at 7:30 to see that the sky is bright and the air is "brisk." Slow to get out---repacking, getting new maps, book, notepad, film out, looking at train schedule AGAIN and finally decide AGAINST Catanzaro and the Sila Massif in favor of ANOTHER time when I'll be with a friend (maybe JJ again) with a CAR and share expenses and experiences, rather than the EXPENSE of renting a car and the possible DISASTER of traveling ALONE (car breakdown, accident, theft). AND to spend more time in TOURIST cities that people will KNOW. Out at 8:15 and get TOTALLY lost on SIMPLE STREETS. Miss Asciuti Hotel, cross river, wander back roads, cross bridge, find Duomo, new and awful and full of Mass. Down to Theatro Cilea: look RIGHT, a gate and SORT of plaza. Look LEFT: concrete balustrades looking like tail bumpers. Turn right: fenced-in trash. Turn left, it's another BUILDING. Around to "front" and there's no entrance. Can't even find a place when it's THERE! Have coffee and roll for 1100 and find a LINE for the museum at 9. Join it and finish by 9:06. To see hot (START OF BOOK 2) red colors still adhering to well-formed buttocks in a terracotta relief (pressed from FEW molds?) is a KICK---or seeing blue between horses' legs or DOTS of pattern on a skirt. Nice details, and a fragment of a YOUNG satyr with cock rampant. Crowd passes by 9:30. RED hair---could they COMBINE finds and come up with a "perfect" reproduction? BROWN boots and PINK skin and BLUE sky and REDDISH fur in one "fresh" fragment. How GREAT to see 6-8 fragment sets giving an idea of a THEME. Themes and characters REALLY in fixed positions: a LOVELY body with no title is LATER seen in JUST that stance (3x) labeled "Zeus Saettanti" (lightning). So nice to see a culture that so obviously ENJOYED male BODIES and COCKS. At 10, to the STATUES. About seven feet tall, of GRAND bulk, when someone says "They're almost alive" I think people would gasp, if the statues moved, not so much from the MOVEMENT as from the PLAY of muscles and BULK of the person IN PROPORTION to their size. The EXTRAORDINARY refinement of the "simplest" line seems proved in that the RIGHT calf, reconstructed---well, no, but maybe DENTED in, has not QUITE the satisfyingly FULL line of the LEFT calf. Incredibly, there are TEETH, clearly separated, and the lower lip is ROUGED, coupled with the WHITES of the eye to give a BREATHTAKING beauty. I think of our "new age consciousness" making it POSSIBLE to find more and more beautiful statues from the Greek era now that we can APPRECIATE them, and I think of a story, UNLIKE Ballard's "Drowned Giant," when a COLORED MARBLE statue of Praxiteles is discovered and everyone who SEES the man FALLS IN LOVE DESPERATELY with it. Sadly, seen RAISED four feet above the floor so that the head is 11 feet up, it looks SMALL in proportion to the heroic body. Statue B is disturbing in that the white AND iris of his right eye exist opposed to the bare SOCKET of his left. Coupled with a HELMET that holds down the ruff of HEAD hair, and much flattened EARS---in fact the head's been DISTORTED, the "rear cap-cut" being much TOO deep for merely hair, bronze, being detached and lost. WITHOUT the hair frame, the head looks ODD and the eye makes it even ODDER. However, his RIGHT leg is FAR more satisfying than Statue A's. Crowd really BUILDS by 10:30. Even in PROFILE his right eye bulges glaringly. Genital hair of B not so finely wrought as A. Mouth slightly open but even with binox I can't see IF there are teeth in the mouth or NOT. A's right arm thrown BACK is more pleasant on the chest than B, and his cockhead is better defined and cock is LONGER. Feet and toes seem better formed than fingers and fingernails. Reconstruction photos make it look like ORIGINAL eye was either recessed more or surrounded by more "flesh" or "lashes," REMOVED in restoration TOO STRONGLY, letting the eye seem to PROTRUDE in the final. Also, the fact of the SMALLNESS of the pupil makes the eye look SERPENT-LIKE, rather than "large and loving." In all, A seems YOUNGER, STRONGER, and more VIRILE than B. Out at 10:40 to buy book. As I EAT, train for 12:58 SHOWS UP AT 12:08! Buy slides and posters too! $9 for two statues! Ask at station, No reservations for 1 pm train. Dither and miss 11:25 local. Check Asciuto for NO restaurant, give 10,000 for San Giorgio and pack and get to station at 12. Eat a beer and pizza piccola for 1400, taking pills on minimal protein. Got on train at 12:15 and an Italian explains in FRENCH that it's not PRENOTATO (reserved) but PRENOTABILE (reservable) to various places, the FARTHEST being Maratea, at 4:30 (or 5 or 6 if it runs the USUAL hour late), so I have GREAT seat till THEN, at LEAST. Also FOLLOWED by lots of people at 12:40 who squabble over seats. I "roll" up (between panes) both window blinds and SHUT no-smoking door and HOPE. VERY comfortable FOR THE MOMENT. Well, it's SUPPOSED to have a RESTAURANT car so maybe I can EAT after dark into Naples! 25,000 left, enough till I get to bank tomorrow. It leaves at 12:59 and views are idyllic. Into Villa San Giovanni 17 minutes early! Leaves at 1:28 when SCHEDULED to leave 1:40!? But, sadly, Miss Greasyfingers takes over my car and leaves her smudgy fingerprints on all the windows, jabbering and joking. Then we're BACK in Villa SG, everyone GOES and I shut DOOR again, and 1:40 train leaves "on schedule" at 1:48. Stromboli VERY vaguely visible from Bagnora. Oh, mustn't forget the preserved GENITALS and one THIGH from a THIRD bronze from that wreck! Gioia Tauro promises two across from me and Maratea the other three. But I MISREAD: each 6 is NOT one compartment but three in one and three in the NEXT, and girl ousts me in Gioia Tauro! OUTRAGEOUS sunset colors at 4:35: intense purple-blue of distant cliffs etched sharp against dark blue above and orange-blue below, all over a LIGHT (amazing) blue sea, almost blue-white, and neon sharp shapes of gray rock and black shore edged with white foam. I'm sandwiched away from window by two pairs of sleeping female legs. Sun gone at 4:40. Dark comes quicker in tunnels. Is fellow across from me gay? Pregnant woman at window with husband insisted I have some bitter chinotto crudo. Quinine indeed! Angry couple on one seat in aisle cursed our precedence. I write in tunnels, of tunnels. Extraordinary sunset: light blue above to gray to tan to flesh-pink through the litmus shades to blue and beyond to purple, stopping at a sea that met it with an almost EMERALD green a few minutes ago. Rainbow coast indeed! Black hills with trees, poles, houses, curves and edges, become perfectly-cut silhouettes against the light-blue-by-contrast sky at 5:25. All light gone by 5:35 and now they're smoking IN the compartment. Salerno at 6:03, EVERYONE wearying, RIGHT on time! Into Naples at 7, lug bag---strap falls off TWICE and FINALLY makes its hole, and I get room 207 at Palace, with BALCONY overlooking Garibaldi, and turn on radio to find Le Roi de Lahore by Massenet, five acts conducted by Richard Bonynge with Sutherland as Sita, Sherrill Milnes, someone as Indra, and Huguette Tourangeau and Nikolai Ghariuov in the cast. GOOD chorus ends act IV, very French and GRAND. Wash SIX pairs of socks and find I've worn FIVE sets of underwear for 20 days, REALLY gross! Jerk off VERY well, starting with I bronzi di Riace beside mirror, and get to restaurant at 9:55 when they close at 10. They HATE me! Antipasto not bad and steak pretty good and wine Errico actually GOOD. Out at 10:20 and back to room to put things away and read the booklet on Italy and there are FREE TICKETS! Bed 11:10.
MONDAY, JANUARY 4. Wake at 2:15 from some sort of dream of a Greek ritual: carrying a woman (or statue) forward on a cart until she LIGHTS UP in some electric blue-white way! Wake again with vague sex dreams and out of bed at 8:10, late. Shower wonderfully and spit on right little toe where I pulled out an irritating nail splinter at 2:15 and again pad my middle top-toe with toilet tissue. Laundry out at 9 and she says it'll be THREE days! Black neighbors (again!) VERY loud. It's COLD but sunny out as I leave at 9:15 to search for freebies. NO "mobile" in FRONT of station and ENIT Tourismo is closed IN station. Hm. Guy says "the boss" went to get sandwiches. So I have AWFUL prosciutto crudo (cotto better) for 1000 (800 better). Back and he's THERE at 9:55. Question and there's NO "bargain book" now, Pompeii and Herculaneum CLOSED today, Capodimonte OPEN. Wait for 110 or 127 from 10:40 and see one ACROSS the WAY. On at 10:50---is NOTHING where it LOOKS to be? Off at 11:20 after talking to Avilinoian who lived in Boston and is looking for work. Museum of Capodimonte closed Monday. I shout to keeper to phone Central Station. He gives phone to me, fag at station insists on talking to guy. Well, St. Martino is open today, till 1. Bus takes too long, with transfer. They call taxi, "Service completo." Taxi comes, takes Autostrada across "lid" of Naples, much traffic, out at 12:10 for 7500! In for one room of glass, two rooms of Presepe, cloister-rooms 14 and 15 closed "por terremoto" and church "aperta domani." AGH! But I laugh, too, or try to. At 12:45 sky VERY cloudy as I take pictures from peak. Crostate di Fettucini fabulous at Belvedere Restaurant, then veal and cognac, white wine WHOLE bottle for 3500, for total bill of 12,750, a bit MORE than I'd planned. Ask WAITER for directions, but all he knows is that ALL funiculars are chiuso. Out at 2:40 and ask cop, who directs me to ATAN. Ask for bus 27 and find I'm reading 42 upside DOWN. Driver of V3 takes me to Plaza Immaculata where I find V7 takes me to Piazza Municipio. Get hours for San Carlo tickets and go to Plaza Plebiscito for 150 bus, REGARDLESS of fact I have only 2000 (can't find a bank or CAMBIO at 3:30!). Zoo at 4:30 (to 5, sans ticket); hippo, rhino, elephant trio; cat roaming FREE; lotsa birds, hyena, wolf, ocelot, jaguar, black panther, leopard; coati CUTE, lynx---doesn't WANT chicken fat, skunk, FOX runs in; vulture tower, lion laying AFTER roar---tacky zoo!---HUGE tigers in TINY cages! Really LOVELY cats in SHIT quarters. LOVELY guy sympathetic? Wolves cringe under lion's HUGE roar. Goat is NOT a dromedary! Two LOVELY cubs and mother lion and two OLDER cubs next to second lioness. Great MALE! Kangaroo hops over; guinea pigs CUTE. Axis and cuvero porcines are DEER! UPPER level for horses and asses, and zebra and guanaco and nilgai (NOT llamas, as I'd predicted), oryx; ostriches picking at fence tops, gnu, giraffe born in zoo 5/12/80 and LOTS of Shetland ponies. Mountain goats and bears. MORE birds and kangaroos and vultures and night screamers; parrots, colored New Guinea brilliants, water birds of all kinds. Black swan really HONKS LOW, like a FOG HORN blare. Out at 5:05 after being DISPLAYED to by a LOVELY black swan showing white under-feathers and snaking long neck back to VERY tail in ballerina-like grace. Got by without entrance fee, too, saving money for Edenlandia, how clever! Mont Blanc (wild mouse) 1000; train 500; Chinese dragon (slow alpine spin) 500; popcorn 500; cars through Old America 500, two fun houses 500, flume 1000, Ferris wheel 500, flying Jumbos 500, flying cups 500, space ships 500; Pirates Castle funhouse 1000, 500 for GREAT babyscafi in REAL water---NICE park, with Alpenblitz 1000 as NEW: dodgem 500, Soyouz (roundup) 500, Festival Biffi funhouse 500, Pirate ship 1000 (like Great Adventure), caterpillar (covered) 500. Even smallest merry-go-round is 500, and PISSING is 100! Walk-through funhouse: false elevator to say "going down," stepping stones over colored water, mirrors for size, sliding forward and back, sideways, circles, and up and down floors, barrel-roll and final air-jet. Not bad, not great. One left, the ride-through funhouse. Ride is FAST and fairly good, nothing new. Leave at 7, cross the street to wait for the 152. At 7:10 the 102 comes; another 102 comes at 7:20, and the OTHER (F7?) comes at the same time. It's COLD! People wait and rush for the SEPSA busses at the next stop. I get colder and sadder and sorer. Curse myself for not taking ANOTHER bus. Just as I decide to take ANYTHING, a 102 PASSES. At LAST, at 8:15, a 102 stops and I take it to Piazza del Plebiscito by 8:35. Across street for four busses to pass and at LAST a "special" for Ferrovia, which I establish as "Stazione Centrale," comes at 8:45. Off at CORNER of hotel at 9:05 GREATLY relieved. Restaurant gives me GOOD cheese omelet for 2200, green salad for 1500, wine for 3500, and cake for 1500 for 8700 + 18% or 10,266. To room to phone Marcello, who says "This is not a good time, for today, my father died." I stagger through, he asks how Sicily was and what I intend to see tomorrow, saying I'm lucky the National Museum only opened two weeks ago after the earthquake! He wants to show me Castel Sant'Elmo and what SOUNDS like Castel del'Ovo on St. Lucia! I'm to phone him about 9:30 on Wednesday pm! Gasp! Catch up with this by 10:05. Jerk off more quickly, but still nicely, and bed by 11:10.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 5. Up at 7:35 and shower and transfer stuff to COAT pockets from BAG for Naples. Tell desk clerk I don't have breakfast. Out to Banco di Napoli and they say go to "Municipio." He says a minute, I say half-hour. He points across Piazza Garibaldi. I say "Then you DON'T mean Piazza Municipio!" There at 8:50 and man says "Ten." I look aghast and he writhes with his fingers, saying I can see and come back. I hit his cage with my fist and shout, "Diese! Museum chiuso lunedi, aperto solomente a UNA, il dice diese!" He raises his eyebrows and finds a paper that tells me the conversion is 1187, so $300 = 356,100, and he takes NO charge! I THANK him and get to San Lorenzo Maggiore for life-size Presepe with GOOD faces, spotlit in side. UP ALTAR STEPS is a small rank of pews, mass with priest's BACK to rows, in elaborate chapel: old-style in a PIECE of old church! Polygonal apse IS very fresh, but all bolstered with terremoto bracing inside and out. Lots of nicely carved medieval tombs. Four people at Mass at S. Maria in Purgatorio. It starts to rain at 9:10. Stops at 9:20. Next cupola-church built in 1904, being redone in lovely yellow now. "Leggi Bric-A-Brac" on one of the concrete "junk walls" on Via Tribunale. (Later I read in New Yorker that these BLOCK traffic from roads too close to buildings that might collapse from traffic vibrations!). Caffe latte and two LOVELY rolls for 1300 + 50 tip. MUCH better than 5000 hotel junk rolls. Special Sannina exhibit, coins of Iserna, LOTS of food, clothes, buttons, plaques, frescos from Pompeii ABOVE first floor, KNOCKOUT statues, but rooms closed "for lack of people" (this is the Archeological Museum, which I found after looking for luggage strap and finally finding one he wants 8000 for, then he says 5000, so I say 4000, he refuses, and I push 4500 into his hand and jam the strap into my pocket) and Antinuous "chiuoso." Out at 12:30, after asking if the Pergamon and Callpygean Venus rooms could be open, but they're closed for 2-3 years after earthquake) and then take bus for Capodimonte Museum, getting in at 1 and sorry to be so late (see Green guide) because some of the pictures are LOVELY and I could have taken a few---no GUIDEBOOK in these places (because it's changed after the earthquake?). A HUGE art book somewhere? (DO get one for this museum in BOOKSHOP for 3000.) Out at 2 and wait for bus 22 back to Plebiscito, but then see Restaurant Donna Maria and have two beers and "ministrina in brodo" (soup in broth?) with noodles and steaming broth (that's OK, my PISS steams outside TOO) and mozzarella in carozza and insalate capriciosa for 7900. Out at 3:15 to wait for bus AGAIN! 22 seems to come every 40 minutes, next is 3:57? Hotel lineup: Excelsior, Santa Lucia, Vesuvio, Continental a-building, Royal. Then 106 comes and I see P. MUNICIPIO on sign (board says P. Dante) so I JUMP aboard as it moves off. Conductor bitches at me and I out-Italian him, saying I waited 40 minutes for the "every 10 minutes 22" and why doesn't BOARD say P. Municipio if this GOES there. So he STOPS at P. Dante! I holler again, then get on NEXT bus FUMING, NOT about to pay. Get to San Carlo at 4:30. Everything closed. Ask at side office and he points at front. I shout "chiuso" and he comes out to point to man getting out of his car: He's selling. So I'm first (and only) in line and get row 2, seat 1, for 15,000 for Giselle. Let's HOPE there's no conductor! BUT "Cenerentola" tickets don't sell till "after tomorrow!" DAMN! Walk out Molescolo, ruddy sunset, MAYBE clearing, then along Santa Lucia, restaurants and clubs BELOW street, then Parthenope, and walk out to Castel del'Ovo and walk THOSE streets, jokers on motor scooter making me JUMP aside. (Practicing for robbery?) At 6 wait for 150, 152, F7, 402, 403, and guy from Herkimer NY tells me 106 goes too, and I get 106 and go! To hotel at 6:30 and jerk off FRANTICALLY, just to come, and rest AWFUL ache back of neck. Out at 8:45 to NOT like Brigantini and end up at Pizzeria Pazzo for unpleasant pizza Capricioso for 2500, beer for 1400 (large), macedonia for 1200 and cover for 300 for 5400+600 tip for 6000. Back to hotel 9:30, raining slightly, and brush teeth and get to bed at 10:20---OUT tomorrow?
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6. 4:50 am: Odd series of dreams on "The Searching Wind," a weapon that "analyzes" the components of a target and then sends back rays to annihilate the target VERY SELECTIVELY, so that HIDDEN things, or things NEXT, may be saved. STARTS with Robert Heistina (?) destroying a building but BADLY CHARRING buildings next to it, and he says he can PRINT as quickly as he can WRITE. Scene ends with a strange dream image of my going to Capri today, connected with snobbiest valets and luggage handlers. Tired at 7:30, so doze till 8:30. Out and it's too foggy to leave town ANYWAY. To Vicario Vecchio and ANOTHER church being redone, and into San Domenico Maggiore, poor candelabra compared with Monreale, and FIRST tomb in sacristy is "Richard Luke Concanen, O.P. First Bishop of New York 1747-1810"! Under faded red velvet covers of 35 or 47 caskets in gallery above! "Consecrated Bishop in Rome April 27, 1808, Enroute to New York, died in Naples June 19, 1810." Church of Gesu Nova HIGHLY decorated; St. Chiara cloisters rather ragged, all side frescos rotting---such QUANTITIES of LABOR represented! ---and church PAINFULLY plain but for tomb of St. Roger, behind FUNERAL mass! At chapel (amid MOST pornographic drawings of Matta in the Palazzo Reale) guard says the rest of the rooms HAD to be closed "to stabilize the frescos and paintings after the earthquake." Leave at 11:40. Lots of painting in chapel from GEROLIMINI collection, also closed. And always GREAT faces and legs of guys in jeans---though not really many CROTCHES. Walk LONG way (up a dead end street) for Funicolare di Chaia, and JUST miss one at 12:42 because the asshole makes me buy a ticket. CROWD comes down from the top and everyone sits IN FRONT, uphill, rather than at bottom. Shorter climb, I suppose. But they leave every 10 minutes, they say. Still pissed at the asshole, however. So hard to keep my "this is an adventure in the unknown and charming (like the huge eyes of the guy with his girl in the exhibit of seven photographers in a huge Palazzo Reale room), and I should take it as it comes, using the 'faults' of the system as new ways of discovering the special magic of Naples (like the huge shouting throng of men and one woman at Donna Maria at lunch yesterday)." But WHETHER I have an energy limit of less than three orgasms in three days, OR the noise and impossible traffic and manifold frustrations and cold and damp (and sometimes VERY slippery stone floors like at the wedding in the domed-Pantheon church in the middle of Piazza del Plebiscito colonnade) are just taking a HUGE toll of energy (and tension on the hump between my shoulders). But I'm perverse, too, NOT taking the January 1982 guide and hoping by my 1972 green guide that the Villa Floridiana (Flori + diana?) IS open till 3 pm. Buzzer buzzes and last people flock onto funicular, and it does leave at 12:52. To Villa Floridiana at 1 and sure enough, park closes at 2! But it's SMALLER than it looks on map and 750 permits ONE room of four cases and a chalice of ivory and enamel from 1200 Limoges, and TWO rooms of majolica and two small SIDE rooms with cabinets and other pieces. Nice oneks, twoks, threeks, and forks in sets. Out at 1:20 to park. No views FROM Villa OR to EAST from Villa TERRACE! Not that GREAT, even in SUMMER with Ischia bright in Bay. Villa Lucia, right next door, is private "Vietato Ingresso." Workmen there TOO. See only Uscita for funicular and NO signs that it's WAY around the corner. Typical pain. Woman next volunteers her seat but her friend is "Encore friska." Wonder about openness of Villa Pignatelli, but I'm ready for a urinal and lunch and aquarium. Il Draga Restaurant for 11,000 from 2-3, GREATLY drunk on wine, good antipasto mixta, 3/4 liter wine, and scaloppini dell'Dragon, good veal, but sadly NO profiteroles. Aquarium has PHALLUSIA MAMMILLATA, titted phalli. Best of BOTH worlds! Out at 4:35, still swimming from wine and go ALL along the wharf, seeing that the LONG moles have GUARDS, seeing that beyond the boat club the waterfront is only INDUSTRIAL. But drunk the walking goes fast. Inland at point where guy I ask says Via Duomo is PAST and Corso Garibaldi is to COME. Through Piazza Mercato and it's closing up but the NEXT street is a DREAM of a night market with fresh fruit and vegetables and produce and hardware, but BEST are the shellfish: live clams spitting, live mussels showing red insides. live SNAILS catapulting themselves about making the waters SEETHE. Fabulous under BRIGHT lights. Look up and THERE'S the Banco de Lavoro of the hotel. Sail into room at 5:55 and there's laundry, but with my blue undershirt missing. Jerk off AGAIN, this time NICE and hard and teasing for 10 minutes. Then read mosaics book and down at 8:30 to find I have to talk to fellow TOMORROW about undershirt. Out to Mimi's and they have NO liver and NO mixed grill so I end with ham omelet, good, and GREAT mixed salad and two beers and good soused baba au rhum, all for 9500 and I tip him 500 for butter and he EVEN comes out of his surly to say "Buona sera!" To hotel and call Marcello and get his BROTHER, who takes my number at hotel and I say I'm staying four more days. Let's HOPE. Bed at 10:15 after writing this.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 7. Wake at 7:05 and it looks pretty good out---blue sky above, gray clouds on horizon. At 7:30 there are more clouds, but I dress and get out at 8:30 and over to Circumvesuviana and buy 1400 return ticket and find there's Pompeii SCAVI and Pompeii stations, and then after breakfast and I'm awaiting the 8:55 Sarno train, I decide to look at SORRENTO schedule and it stops at Pompeii Villa of Mysteries! So I dash down track 3 at 8:53 for the 8:49 train and it pulls in in a minute. Off after normal ride---Vesuvius under clouds, at 9:15 and in to find museum closed (they SAY stuff is in Naples) and guy sells me a guide for 3000. Follow pretty well except about HALF is CLOSED. Follow around, few tourists at START, and then groups grow, and my flash comes in VERY handy. Sneak a few shots from North Tower until guard calls me down, saying it's periculoso. Down back roads and into lots of dead ends, ignoring lunch, and finally cover it all by 2:30 and find that Mysteries closes at 4. Dash back by 3 and in to find it LAST, take pictures, and out at 3:35 STARVED. Pass nice restaurant and she just falls over me (and overcharges, too!). I even give 500 tip for 10,000 overall, but they DID stay open for me and it WAS good salad and omelet and wine. To station at 4:05 and on at 4:25 and in at 4:55 and decent sunset. Capri tomorrow? My shirt is in the room and I flop into bed until 7, when I write this. Think about rest of trip, actually the six days still unplanned between Naples and Milan, and I'll probably go ALL the way to the Dolomites just to bat about my train ticket. LATER for a CAR with SOMEONE. Finish "Nabokov's Dozen" by 10:25. What now? Try to sleep but start thinking of EARTHQUAKES at 10:35 and actually think I FEEL one small one so that my HEART TAKES OVER MY BODY with such pounding that it's the center of my being---is THAT what an emotion is?? At last it dies down and I sleep by 11.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 8. Wake at 5:50 and doze till 6:40, at which time I'm up and taking a good shower. At 7:10 I look out: still DARK, with CLOUDS, but it's not TERRIBLY cold (no sign of my breath when thermometer shows 9 C (48 F) at 7:50 at seashore) and it IS red in the east (red sky at dawning, sailor take warning?). So I'm out at 7:30 and there's a stop right in front of hotel with lots of P. Municipio and one comes and I stand next to a LOVELY guy with HUGE eyes (like the Riace statue B in size, in fact, with the eyelashes of A) that ANOTHER guy who's maybe gay keeps LOOKING at. Off at 7:50 a stop beyond, but get to Aliscafi to find they're on STRIKE on return, THEIR regular boat leaves at 4 pm and gets back at 5:20, but at last it dawns on me that I could take any OTHER regular boat back at ANY time in PM in time to return to hotel to change for ballet. Though, actually, I think I'll ASK if I can enter with jeans when I get back from island to save myself hassle of hotel-return. No boat IN (Procida and Ischia leave at 7:45 and 8, as planned), so I get coffee and roll for 900 at pier. Out to yowling cat in box and boat arrives FULL (of some LOVELY legs) and I board at 8:08, cheered by clearer skies in SOUTH and WEST than in Naples. Catch up with this by 8:17, feet chilly already. If I knew it was going to be COLD on Capri I WOULD have worn jacket and flannel trousers under coat, but at Pompeii YESTERDAY they would really have been too HOT, so I hope Capri is AT LEAST as warm and sunny. Horn blows last people on and we rev up and leave pier at 8:19 (8:15 by harbor clock), gas smell strong in cabin air, left window on top level nice. Factory yesterday AND today (and ALWAYS?) still spewing smoke into air, today toward SEA, yesterday over Barra. Pity it's cloudy: Vesuvius is THERE, but gray; Monte Fialto has a cloud around its top; distant hills BETWEEN those two may have snow on top, but it's hard to be sure; Ischia only the vaguest SHADE to west; wave spray wets my window about 18 feet above sea. Naples very MISTY toward back, but there IS sun and flecks of BLUE SKY in front! Dock 9 am. OTHER hydrofoil IS working, leaving at 1:20 and 3:20! Ask her, after cruising docks and finding NOTHING, if going to Grotta Azzura today. No, too much swell, maybe tomorrow. Decide to take bus, not funicular (which isn't running) to Capri. Board 9:25. Off at 9:40, CROWDED. To Capri Information for map, she'll call for Blue Grotto. Off at 10 for Villa Jovis, one hour, she says, and have a GLORIOUS day: Villa Jovis at 11, pictures, climb "closed" wall for some "side" shots, then BACK along the road to see the Natural Arch, pictures too close, along fabulous stairs to Punta Masulla, with a HOUSE, and by the Faraglioni and incredibly beautiful Scalinatelle Hotel, to Information booth at 12:30, where she says the sea is STILL too rough for Grotto. So I get 100 roundtrip to Anacapri on a GREAT road, and get out to find THAT chairlift under repair, an hour up. Take a shortcut at 1 and at 1:25 get to side-top over ALL of east Capri, then up moist-earth path to top of Monte Solaro at 2, trying to bring a cat back, and panting down the hard regular road to Anacapri at 2:30, with all the school kids that "complete" a bus. Have a panini con proscuitto and cheese and a GOOD beer for 2000 while waiting, and jam last few bites in pocket when THIRD bus comes, getting me to Capri by 2:55 and buy ticket for the "death seat" of a bus to Marina Grande, taking three great shots on the way down, and buy my 5000 ticket for the 3:20 aliscafi at 3, so I have a square pizza (mediocre) and another beer for 1500, finally taking pills and feeling fed, and SNAV Aliscafi Frescia dell' Isole (SAME as for Aeolian Islands) comes in at 3:08 and I'm on FIRST for ONLY front-facing single right seat at 3:10 and catch up to date by 3:22 by my watch, satisfactorily full in stomach, drunk in head, traveled on foot, warm in body, and looking forward to Naples and ballet on TIME. Funny priest makes jokes and rides up with Captain. Everyone on boat either businesslike or tourists. Met SAME Italian couple at Jovis AND arch, and here's the couple I saw at the ARCH (he HUMPY) on the boat. We pull free by 3:24 by my watch, a minute EARLY? Mustn't forget CAPRI was almost without cars, while Anacapri suffered MANY of them with MANY car-adapted streets! Area quite hazy, so I'm content to sit below and see MUCH less of shore than in AM. Into Naples 4:05 but at the Laura dock, almost to Possolipo, so I wait for a bus on the street till no bus comes (think about it!) and then go two blocks and get off at San Carlo. Buy 25,000 ticket for Cenerentola and he says my dress is "normale" for performances. So I look for nice coffee shop and find none, bookshop and find secondhand one, then new one for a 3000 guide to the Archeological Museum (in French) and another new one that has nothing. Wander shopping streets and get to opera at 5:30 and buy program for only 2000 and read it before and during intermission. Audience of kids in most boxes is AWFUL with shs and hisses and audience joins in with SH and actual shouts that bring scattered applause. A real zoo, partly because, music recorded, there's no orchestra or conductor to watch. 6:05-7 and 7:30-8:30 and I STILL use binox from SECOND row! Terabust makes an ideal Giselle: wide-eyed, sad-mouthed, precise, filled with balance and real DRIVE when she needs it. Schaufuss is not really turned on, does only "adequate star quality" work. Music is erratically loud and soft, few times the tape is stretched. Crowded beautiful hall, on 7 levels, VERY small slits for people in top ranks. Adequate sets, nice silky white pants for everyone but Hilarion, in brown. Myrta good and cold. Walk back looking for market but all streets are black and empty. Continue past Mimi's to Da Giovanni di Ferrovia and have "Italian antipasto" which is prosciutto and that mediocre canned marinated stuff, with good FRESH stuff going to waste at the serving table. Two others finishing. Waiter insists on soup and spaghetti, has no liver, and I have fried brains and mozzarella, disappointingly SEPARATE, would be interesting interlapped. Awful fat cashier stares down from his balcony at me so I have no dessert, but meal still runs 8000. Guy at hotel hands me 185,000 bill, insisting 25,160 for room rate and I say it was less before. "No," he says, sounding like ME. I go up and FIND old bill, jerk off fairly quickly to Farnese Hercules, read book, and get to bed at 11:10, Indians STOPPING their party, thank God.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 9. Wake at 2 and then at 6:20, and up to shower and dress and at 7:10 the street is GRAY with smoke and fumes. Mr. Romero is only in at 8. Tough. Bus to boat, same 4900 for Aliscafi, same notice of no boats back in afternoon. Onto boat WITHOUT breakfast (suspect I'll have more time on Ischia, only hope there's SOME transportation AROUND the island), at 7:45, just as it comes in and top fills up quickly and people have to sit below, but it seems there are few (foreign, anyway) tourists. Again I'm left with only 23,000 for a weekend, so I'll probably have to stay in Naples till MONDAY for BANK. Still hoping for Marcello to call so we can do SOMETHING Sunday, but as I "found" Ischia for today, I'll surely find something for tomorrow---if only TRAIN-ride east and back for a day's circle---if not. Newspaper reviews Marlene Dietrich's "Morocco" on TV. I have NO idea of ANY news so far on the trip. Sun STILL hasn't appeared by 8 am, clouds in the north appearing DARK and THICK, but I've had luck SO far in Naples (not in Milan) so let's hope it holds true more days. Only 100 written pages for 26 days, less than 4 per day, maybe less than two TYPED. Well, OK. Pull away at 8:05 by my watch exactly, in right window for coast again. But we coast through harbor, leaving only at 8:15, arriving Ischia (after passing LOTS of rocks and islands, not ONLY Procida) at 8:45 and actually DOCKING at 8:50. VERY gray and clouded sky, clouds over Ischia's peaks. Wait for tourist office to open 9-9:30 and he tells me of BUS around island. Great! No NEED to rent a car. Lots of GERMAN on signs. Onto bus #1 at 9:45, just leaving, and get to Capo Grande at 10:30. Walk down to tiny village and climb around San Angelo rock, but not REALLY into seeing if I can get to the top---clouds still cover mountaintops---so I check schedule and figure I'll leisurely catch the 11:40, surely WILL have time to see part of the Presepe Vivente (Jan 6-10) at Casamicciale at 3:30 for Three Kings and maybe 5 for "birth" in six parts. Looks like jeans to San Carlo again! Back up road to bus---surf, for the sea, is really STRONG, spray reaching up about 20 feet into the restraint wall that better be protected with rocks in front or it won't last long---at 10:25, 20 minutes from bus #2. #1 comes in and the two men chat. Dog barks. Tide booms in undermined sandstone caves---restaurant and garages carved out of soft stone. Few people wander past. Can't identify any TOURISTS at all. I'm hungry. And thankful that today the top of right middle toe is strongly scabbed enough not to wear toilet paper around it. AND that anal suppository antibacterial agent works on athlete's foot, since it hurt two days ago and now feels OK. Back to "normal." Defiant, machismo red-faced kid guns red motor scooter full-gear past drivers, glaring at them. #1 leaves at 11:37. There better BE a #2! Smoke rises from various burnings on hill. In "village" most men play cards, some tend to fishing nets. A few cars buzz past. Odd contrast of SEA-worn HORIZONTAL erosion of sandstone and RAIN-worn VERTICAL pinnacles of erosion. #2 arrives at 11:40; driver eats, conductor smokes and chats. I board, another 500, and sun shines in small bright spots on sea. VERY lazy day! Patches of blue almost gone, clouds really too THICK to just "go away." So no attempt to climb the mountain, either. Leave 11:46. Was DECIDED to RETURN to Capri; can't imagine EVER returning to Ischia, though the THERMAL nature of the waters of the island (eight springs in San Angelo, Vesuvius the hottest at 42 C, 108 F. Off bus 12:30, to walk to Castle. Sun almost bright. Castle IS private, quite a place. Sun actually OUT at 1. Wander back main street, VERY dead; beach, only four people playing tennis; back to street, all VERY closed. Finally, at port, the Papillon Restaurant is positively TEEMING; it must be the ONLY place open. Sit relieved at 1:30, but at 1:45 they have NO soup, only various kinds of spaghetti, so I fall back on mixed salad, their scallopine Papillon, and 40 cl. beer for 1500! BUT the only thing left is to buy my ticket back and get to the living crèche. Eleven tables full in all, and English sounds distasteful, but not as GRATING as GERMAN. Out at 2:30 for 7000, semi-black cruising rather nicely. Buy 2200 (THAT'S why people take it) ticket 5:25-7 to Naples, stopping in Procida, and take 3 pm bus to Casamicciola by 3:10. Wander pier for fish and jellyfish. (Read opera-lobby posters and see that Rudy Bryans is dynamite as Apollo with Terabust in Berlin. Wander halls and find that the top is a CLUB---the first ring is the bar.) (Nice trip back, walk to Harry's for dinner, GREAT Cenerentola, WALK to hotel.) To put things backward (at 12:50 am): a baby running upstairs screaming with laughter as her 5-year-old sister chases and looks back anxiously at 2-3 older women sleeping in chairs in the second floor lobby (though later I read about all the unhappy earthquake people still stuck in hotels and these are probably THEM!) the doorman and deskman sharing a quart of mineral water with two whores from the street; a twelve-year-old accosting me loudly for a light; a car I think followed me 2-3 turns as I frantically left Vecchio Vicario and tried to find hotel; total madness of gangs of boys playing volleyball and shouting at 12:30; a boy somewhere singing and slapping his hands as loud as he can; obviously the busses have stopped; it's a wonder dozens aren't killed in the people and car and traffic crush as San Carlo lets out at JUST midnight. Also: the waiter meticulously 1) salting the dish, 2) adding vinegar and dissolving the salt with a fork, 3) adding the oil and mixing them both VERY thoroughly. MOST expensive meal at Harry's: 1000 cover, 3000 Tagliatelle Harry's, 6000 scallopine funghi, 2000 salad, 7000 wine, 2500 milk-mozzarella = 21,500 + 15% (3000) = 24,500 + 1500 surtip = 26,000 or about $22. Finally to bed at 1:30 am.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 10. Wake at 9:30 to shouts from Indians next door. I'm LEAVING. Shower and get 56,000 for $50 and pay 36,400 for the room---they finally get their sign up and only AS I was leaving did he think of 2400 tax to add to the strange 25,160 per day bill. Pack EVERYTHING in suitcase and get out 11:15, later than I'd hoped. ONLY 11:30 train north is to MILAN. Oh, well, try to board "reserved" car and turned back, lug two cars more and find cabin with seat free only till ROME. Steward comes with table reservations for primo or secondo and I take primo then have to chase him to ask WHEN (12:15) and WHERE (back). Then look at schedule and see this IS the 11:30-13:30 Naples-Rome train, but I have to CHANGE for 13.45 for Verona! Oh! Out of city JUST on time to BIG patches of blue, family of three eating pizza, and lots of fields of grapevines are espaliered on wires on maybe 6-7 levels between trees clipped back to maybe seven meters tall. Makes an interesting and characteristic picture. Smell myself in wet shirt from lugging suitcase. On TRAINS, must travel LIGHTER. Weight is OK only for CAR and TWO bags, one for night, one for permanent trunk. Clouds up more toward noon, but HAZE is gone. Seeing a BLACK pigeon cruising a white one in a field reminded me of pigeon-cotes cut into sandstone cliffs on Ischia, next to very old caves used for storage of wines. Trains could make GREAT time if they didn't slow to walking speed for 5-10 minutes every 20-30 minutes! Kid makes a pain of himself by joking and wanting things when he should just be taking a NAP. So many houses seem half-BUILT (family living below while FINISHING second floor) or falling apart (lower or upper floors ruined, only shades on ONE floor). Lunch (no price listed, but it's 17,600 and 1400 for beer and 1800 for Service for a staggering 19,800 bill!) in the restaurant car with two non-speaking Italian men. Leaves me only 5000 for dinner! Manza is OX and it's LIKE a small pig with no meat. Finish just before arriving late in Rome at 13:40. Off and hustle around looking for 13:45 train and there's ONLY the one I got OFF. Ask someone and he says it IS the train to Florence and Bologna. Well! Get on it in a seat good from ROME (SAME middle position going forward) and find (as schedule DOES say, with code "e,") that I change in BOLOGNA. Write this sitting in station at 1:55. Woman goes to restaurant at 2 and I enjoy her window seat till 3:15. Then ride into darkness, reading, and into Bologna at 6:15. Hustle suitcase out and downstairs and up to track 6 and first onto Verona train, which leaves at 6:59. Finish "Transparent Things" at 7:45, SHOULD be arriving! Florence was VERY damp and foggy at 5, so no real temptation to stay. Bologna was very COLD, and at least now I can see it's quite CLEAR out. My silent young friend in the car gets up to leave here too. Stopping just on time. Station seems in the middle of NOWHERE. Bus? Taxi? Where TO? Wander to center of station and see sign for Hotel Rossi, a LONG 200m. GREAT room, but it's 30,000! Down to station to price two toasts and beer for 3100, but casse says "Take a table" and I get the same thing for 4500! Good it wasn't more than the 5400 I HAD. Filling enough. Back to room and get to bed about 11.
MONDAY JANUARY 11. Wake at 6:30 and up at 7:20 to shower and it's SNOWING out. Pack in small bag and get passport at 8:45 and get 115,500 for $100 at STATION, so decide to leave at 10:12 to Brenner, when 15-20 minutes at ALL the schedules is just DIZZYING, some places taking 3-4 trains just to GET to. At hotel, guy says, "It NEVER snows in Verona, yesterday was cold, tomorrow cold be much BETTER," so I'm glad to be leaving, get small bag and have a BURST of delight on way back to station. Surely a tralatition here: impatient and sore lugging around my PAST (books and slides and souvenirs), but I leave it (for later though!) with a MUCH lighter heart, step, and back. Get good hot chocolate and bun for 1100 and get SOME help with a WINTER schedule for Verona, but it does NOT give, for example, the 13:15 local from Bolzen to Brenner. Seems it'll be MUCH more "where is the next train going?" sort of trip, which CAN be fun since I have LIGHT bag and MONEY. Sit in unheated (except by bodies and cigarette smoke) kiosk waiting for Brenner 10:12 train to arrive---and it's 10:02 NOW. Does come at 10:06, half of one car first class, each with 1-2 people. I join dark car with reader. I think I sit forward, train reverses. How does one know? Leave at 10:20, snowy and cloudy, but snow's like powdered sugar over everything. Watch hills grow and grow, and get into Bolzano at 12:15. Check that local DOES leave at 13:15, leave and take quick tour: altar in Duomo is lit for photographer but church is VERY plain, even one-story carved pulpit. Around corner to Dominican church, but frescos are VERY fragmentary. To Via Portici and market is VERY picturesque, but it's all more AUSTRIAN or GERMAN than Italian. Finish Bolzen (but there's LOTS of CULTURE (in Kultur Haus Walther von der Vogelweide): opera recital at 8:30 tonight, Goethe on Thursday, others) at 12:55 and get two salamis and a big beer for 170 + 1400 and drink beer fast and eat salami waiting for train that leaves 13:20. Crowded few first-class cars, I get backward seat hogged by guy ACROSS who SLEEPS. At 2 in Bressanone I make a mistake and leave HIM for a front-riding seat in a SMOKING car and get joined RIGHT away with four smoking card players who use fifth seat for card table. Damn! But vistas are lovely and clouds stay BEYOND hilltops. Must be employees because conductor doesn't even CHECK their tickets. Lots of tour busses on road: seems high NEW road for trucks and older-lower road for cars? VERY Germanic sights outside. Many FROZEN waterfalls and edge-frozen rivers. Dramatic. But at Fortezza at 2:20 EVERYONE leaves and I get solo front-facing seat in NO-smoking car. FAST without SUITCASE! Finish salami with card players. FEW tunnels so far. Lots of cute military (FEATHERS in caps!) get off at Fortezza. ONLY, sadly, THIS window's dirtier! At Vipiteno, at 2:45, there's a glimpse of sun-white peaks WAY to north! ALL signs in German since BEFORE Bolzen. SUN on HIGH alps at 2:55. Off in Brenner at 3:10 and find that the ONLY connection to Merano is through Bolzen! Train leaves 3:30, back same way, and finally I find that there's a 17:16 train to Brunico from Fortezza, so I can go THERE, stay overnight, and continue to the END and double back to Merano TOMORROW (I hope). Let's hope I can get a BETTER MAP, too! Off at Fortezza at 4:20, have a beer, watch people, look at electronic game playing with itself, depressed on how FAST it gets DARK, quite dark by 17:18 when the train gets in and I find that "Autowagon" is NOT a train of flatcars for automobiles, like the one that passed as I READ about "Autowagen" for all my trips, but a self-propelled car, THIS one three cars long. Watch sweep of snow mottled by skiers and walkers and get into Brunico at 6:02, and it's quite dark. Ask a woman about hotels and she says "Chiuso." Oh. Walk toward lights and find Hotel Poste, MY double for 47,000 given at "Mindestpreis" of 22,000, a REAL bargain for entry, bath, eating area, and two lovely quilted beds and one cot. Out to river, but promenade dark and slippery, and walk to castle STEEP and slippery. But rest of town is bustling and charming, again more GERMAN than Italy, so I stop in busiest pizzeria after walking ALL around town and finding it's rather PLUSH and expensive---obviously everyone arrives by CAR, not the dinky train. Have kassler rippen and sauerkraut and dried potatoes and a large and a small beer for 7800, quite a gastronomical change. Take noon pills and wander some more, but crowd is young and shouting and German, so I get back to room at 8 to experiment with triple mirrors a LOT (chair, table, luggage stand, floor, bed, table), before coming, and get to sleep about 9---OH, also took a nice hot BATH with Jolly fluid, bubbly.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 12. Wake at 1, 3, and 5, odd dream about someone needing TWO pieces of paper and can find only ONE, and I THINK I know where second one is, but I'm not sure. Up at 6:15 and wash and brush teeth and pack and down at 6:45 to pay a German busboy my 22,000, which he receipts in a very proper way. Walk dark slippery way to station at 6:55, get some new schedule information from the helpful map of Italian rails, and sit and write, inside and out, until bell rings and guy announces 7:20 train at 7:19. Horizons JUST beginning to come to a bluish light over black tops, with visible white swatches of snow. EARLIER than 7:15 (and later than 5:15) there's just NOTHING to see but LIGHTS. About twenty people on platform as train draws in at 7:22. Monguelfo/Welsburg typical of Italian/German stations. These are not THE greatest mountains, but ANY landscape in snow is dramatic at first light: night lights still ON for contrast against the gray-pink houses, black pines, and white snows and ices. To San Candido just at 8:10 and there are a FEW Dolomite spires poking through (actually UNDER) clouds being drawn east toward the sun. For a while it looks like the sun might APPEAR, but the far hills remain somber and the peaks remain unpink, so the valley has little chance of direct rays. Have coffee and roll for 1200, then out to look at scene, and skier goes by on far left, where chairlift takes up a body about every four cars. Action! So Cortina (to south where Dolomites were) must be nice and trains DON'T go there! Board train at 8:45, feet quite cold, and shoes not very good on hard ice, slid a few teetery times, but hope not to fall. Give aching neck-shoulder-back muscle some energies and get FURIOUS response from its ego. Think again of my propensity for going to the EDGES---"Edge City" seemed so attractive. Pull out at 8:53 to the clatter of ski poles as 4-5 ITALIAN skiers board and SHOUT. Actually, I like QUIET Germans better than LOUD Italians! Great glimpse of Italian army on maneuvers: ten men, ten feathered caps, eight rifles, and four mules! A distant ice rink and close IGLOOS show SOME interest other than skiing. So many huge WOODPILES and so many LUMBER yards---how do the forests survive at ALL? From factory smoke and morning hazes, countryside is actually LESS clear at 9:15 than at 7:45. Lots of unshoveled and SHOVELED ice ponds for skating, too. Everyone seems so HEALTHY and strong, making a cripple waving to the train (30ish man) seem even more PATHETIC. VERY few of the trees way up here show the red or yellow new-twig color. All cut wood and machinery yellow, road and river and tree black, and snow white (and seven dwarfs). At Brennero we actually RODE NORTH of (unphotogenic) customs booths and border stations of Switzerland. At San Candido there was a train IN from Austria: police checking passports at the single open door at the FRONT of the train that was mostly OUT of the station to the Austrian-east. VERY many trips in one, and I again congratulate myself on how I seem to be TEMPERING seeing "just new" with half of "re-seeing favorites," as transition to old age where it'll be ALL "re-seeing." Into Brunico on time at 9:32, some clouds VAGUELY pinkish, the little private castle neat on its small hill, taller than the church spires. Strikes me that I've seen no GLACIERS here so far; makes for FAR more drama. Into Fortezza at 10:10, walking to bridge across river and enjoying feeling of SUN, talking to Australian who slept through his train-change for Venice and ended in Tolback! He thought I might be Canadian. "Good" hills around Fortezza have now become "mediocre" and I sit in cabin at 10:37 waiting for 10:37 train that comes in at 10:38. MAYBE the sky's clearing? So far three of six trains today OK. Incredibly, my eyes won't adjust to the SUN, first time in ages, that shines brightly from 10:40, on. But there's an awful pink HAZE in the air that makes almost ANY photos seem SILLY. Is this only in wood-burning WINTER or all industrial year round? Stupe opposite goes out, leaves door open, and opens aisle window, then looks at me when I shut cabin door to keep in what little heat there is. Southern Italian? Can't recall WHAT I did with sunglasses and chapstick (later find them both in black shoulder bag). Chapdick? Into Bolzano about 11:35, and since I've SEEN it already, I go to restaurant to eat (after checking where the hell track 1A is, way at the end of the platform) and there's nothing hot, only two salami panini like before, and beer, for which suddenly she wants more than 4000. Finally she figures she's charged me for THREE salamis. So it's 3200. Eat amid a repertory of Italian character gesticulations and shoutings. Into train at 12:13 after my third or fourth piss of the day. Schedule EVEN says this connects with Merano Malls at 13:35! GREAT if you really READ them. Sun still shining merrily as car begins to fill toward half full! Feel FULL but not really FED. Added an awful strudel for 600. Recall that Pepsi-Cola plant façade north of Bolzano was artfully triangularly angles and mirrored: from front and from TOP. Somehow I suspect they don't speak ITALIAN so far into GERMANY. Was this formerly a PART of Germany ceded to Italy after some war, as the Ruhr and Saar was to France? Leave at 12:28. Mountains larger, and some spectacularly sited houses on tops. But Merano is SUNK in a deep pink haze, with mountains rising all around in white, particularly FAR to north. In at 1:10 and would like to take pictures, but everyone's piling onto Malles train, so I get on for good seat, THEN go out for photos, and take great (though somewhat hazy) shot from station garden. I'm sure the German women I asked to watch my bag (and place) thought I went to the john. Back QUICKLY, just to be SURE! TWO little cars this time, just like from San Candida. Neither Malles nor Nalles in dictionary. Since this is day 29 of trip, I AM over 4 pages/day now (on page 118). Nothing like long station stops to pad the page. GREAT ride and GREAT pictures. St. Martin has a funivia I wish I could stop for. All Bolzen license plates have BZ; I feel at home. Usually 4-5 C in end-spots. Into Malles at 3:18; I'm beginning to get a bit ROAD-sick! Today is a "long" day, but only 7:17-17:16, or 10 hours minus a little over THREE hours in stops, so really only SEVEN hours, though much more than THAT is in jostling train "getting ready to leave." Malles is not much, but the WALLED TOWN below it looks like a kick. In some parts of the valley---MANY parts---the sun has ALREADY set at 3:15, and I'm not JUST speaking of north-facing slopes, either. Clouds much thicker in west, but then we may just be lots higher. Much of day around 1000 meters high. Merano is a BIG town, so if lots of funiculars are running, I may be there till NOON. Maybe tomorrow night in Belluno. Have to remember to get train schedule for Trent, Castelfranco, and Belluno at station tonight. All the steam I wiped so MUCH off the windows goes QUICKLY when one window is just LEFT OPEN for the time of the stop. "Finish" numbering pages through 150, just over 4/day. South mountaintops still JUST sunlit as we leave, late as usual, at 15:45. Pass Schluderns Glurns/Sluderno Gloreza (G/I)---WHAT? Drop camera taking #20. Floor VAGUELY rubberized, hope all is OK. Huge blocks of MARBLE at Lass/Laas. With some juggling I manage to keep TWO window going-front seats, which means I hog EIGHT! Laces/Latsch?? Always a LONG stop, many times waiting for a train to PASS. Old men wearing blue aprons. Close-up "ice hulk" was obviously a poor TREE watered by a HOSE and frozen, maybe hose running overnight, from size of icicles. Sun ALL gone WAY before 4:30. Sky PINK in west, on clouds, till 4:55. Drink Steinhager---Doornkat later, only alcohol? Into station at 5:15 and it's dark. Get schedule into Belluno at 18:32, late. Pass Grand Hotel EMMA (closed) past the hockey game. Croso Liberta is all closed ALSO, GREAT old hotels and homes. Down Corse and try Via Portici for hotels. Lots of SIGNS but when I enter TWO of them they're closed! Rathaushotel black. Hm. To Cathedral and wander dark passage on Via Leonardo da Vinci (looking very much like da Vino on sign). Then make a BIGGER circle but they're ALL closed. Lots of PEOPLE but no place to STAY! WAY out to Desiree and Bel Site, but THEY'RE closed. Ask, and woman says "Center." Try albergo on Corse and he says a LOT are open, even Europa at the corner. TO corner and it IS open, even though for 27,500. I say it's expensive, she says that's it. Up to room 8 and it's nice (HIGH soap dish, not low one that FILLS, like Brunico; shower CURTAINS so I don't wet everything and make it perilously wet and slippery, like Brunico). Out and look for restaurant and for 10,500 have GOOD liver (at LAST) and herbed potatoes, nice as I mash in good salty gravy, and half-liter of local Auslese red, good and NOT dry, and Doornkat for drink. Wander more streets but it's COLD, so bed at 9:15.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13. Wake at 6:20 and jerk off, then great shower and down at 7:45 to find desk is LOCKED! Wander up river passage---all hotels are ACROSS the river, which I thought was NOWHERE last night---to "powerful" falls at 8:15, could be VERY pleasant in summer and to revisit---and even see that there are BUSSES to Station, Tirol, Avelungo funivia, and OTHER places marked on GOOD maps at stops! Decide to try walking to Tirolo Castle, but at 8:55 I'm cold and tired and though valley to north is SPECTACULAR and road good for walking (no traffic!) it's NOT about to get sunny, STAYS about freezing, and hitchhiking doesn't work and bus doesn't come! So I turn back to the elevated Tappeiner Weg, GREAT walk, and I DEFINITELY want to come back. LOVELY place and views from city and from surroundings. Back to hotel at 9:30, pay bill, piss, cash $350 for 423,400, GREAT rate, and then indulge 2200 for TWO apricot buns and GOOD caffe latte---almost like CHOCOLATE. Wander back to Duomo, in and out, and more Via Portici, and back through center of town and nice arcade and photo Grand Hotel Emma and get GREAT map outside station that I HOPE comes out with WORDS on slide! (And it DOES!) Onto train at 11:05 in one of eight first-class seats and surprised when we're FOUR as I finish this and we leave on 11:24 train at 11:27. Orario tutti is only 1200, I should have GOTTEN one at FIRST. Too late now. Off at 12:10, city HIGHLY overcast, really dreary. Piss, check 12:35 express to Rome (Trento at 13:15) on track 4, and get a beer and two (guess what?) salami sandwiches, all for 2500. At 12:20 across to track 4 and nothing's there. Sit and write. All the trees (major fields aside from grapes) are APPLE, having been trimmed down before for that "squashed" look they have, are now being trimmed again, tree by tree, by men (usually one in a field) on a ladder, strewing the ground underneath with topmost branches, leaving them looking very downcast indeed. But what a SIGHT these valleys would be in apple-blossom time! Women "in first class" chatted about Lerici and other "nice" places. Guess the Rome will be coming from Brennaro and will be crowded when I get on. WELL, they announce that the ROME will be 80 minutes late. At 12:23 the 12:20 to Trento is gone from track 1, of COURSE, since I could have USED it! There's a 12:54 to Bologna that gets in at 13:34, leaving me FIVE minutes for train to Castelfranco at 13:39! Oh, boy! It enters and since it goes ALMOST everywhere the ROME train will go, it's SWARMED. I get backward-going seat. Eat. Leave at 12:57---ONE minute to get train? VERY foggy out, not much to see, let alone the Brenta massif! Conductor says the Castelfranco train is for VENICE, on "primo tronco." Great. Grand valleys recede into total mist. Papers keep giving headlines and stories on how BAD the winter is in Europe, worst in England in 18 years, holding up trains, etc. Um. Acres of POLES needed for new vineyards. In at 13:36 by THEIR clock, and "tronco" turns out to be good old 1A! So conductor tells me to run under underpass (no, THROUGH!) and old man waves me on and I get ON at 13:40 and it LEAVES at 13:41, giving me time to LEAVE one car and get on OTHER car to be third in 16-seat first class. Done! At Roncogno the only inhabitants of the station were two WHITE turkey males, 6-7 females, and LOTS of chicks, some chickens and GEESE standing around on one leg with DUCKS. GREAT river chasm just BEFORE that, at 1:55. MUCH more snow---are we HIGHER? GREAT ice balconies in 4-5 layers of 6-7 foot icicles hanging from rock strata into river canyon. Signs HERE only in ITALIAN! Fabulous terrace-snow reflections in Lago Ischia! First class would be NICER if the WORKERS weren't permitted to play cards on one train or sit and speak in some strange guttural Germanic Italian on this one. Good castle on hill above Borgo, and guy behind with awful accent leaves. Others invade first class. Cute face in jeans leaves a station office. I think, "Would that HE sat across from me." He enters train; I wish harder; he enters car; I think, "It's all crowded, you'll want to sit HERE." He talks to girl in back (about his signora?) of me and I glance at him. He at me. He goes forward. I pull. He comes back and sits across from me and opens a notecase with xeroxed pages in ENGLISH! Our eyes meet. He writes. I write. NOW what? HUGE sheer cliffs at Grigno---like my emotions: sharp, jagged? How can people live on TALUS below such cliffs, knowing (do they?) that the talus FELL from the cliff ABOVE them? Scenes MUCH too widespread for photography. Passo Brocon GREAT valley north of Grigno? Seeing him finish correcting his paper in ENGLISH I say "Looks like a thesis" and Erio has studied at the University of Edinburgh, knows English better than Edgardo, and is charming about saying I should drive around his Trento-Adige area under his advice, particularly Val Gardena and Lagorai Mountains---and take the Belluno bus to Cortina! I won't like Travisio because it's rather flat, though with nice Yugoslav influences, and when he says Venice has terrible floods 1.8 meters above high level, I say "I'm going to Venice." We have LOVELY chat about Reagan and limited atomic war in Europe, how the main US export is war, and family roots. Into Venice at 5:25, PERFECTLY clear and I'm VERY happy. Into information booth after he phones his friend (no answer) and office (Judith talks too much) and gets me suggestion of Pensione Accademia. Maps and timetables. Walk long way to his office, he buys wine in local bistro for the three of us in return for PROMISE to come to NYC, and he goes to apartment (wishing I could stay with him but talking of his girlfriend) and lays down bags and takes me to GREAT Accademia for 19,500 (but no bath). Check schedules and "Bilitis and the Faun" is at Teatro Malibran at 8. Up to room 10 and spread stuff out (including Orario sheets Erio TORE from his book for me) and get down at 7 to say I'm GOING to Teatre. He points out vaporetti stop and I get on for 800 (seems much) and to theater for 20,000 seat in G18 (this is Turno A, others HALF as much). Out to a pizzeria for three sandwich halves and beer to stave off dinner pangs and back to PLAIN theater and FANCY audience for AWFUL decadent non-dancing (but Carla Fracci CAN be very funny, does MOVE very well even in soft slippers, and is VERY concentrated and serious) and reciting (Valentina Cortese looks SO funny reading lines with GLASSES). Juneo, or whoever, isn't nice of face but has nice legs. Jumps nice, but Bonnefoux has NO talent as a choreographer. No intermission, endless till 9:55. Then everything's closed but the Trattoria Malibran. I stand for a toast and wine, then a lox sandwich and more wine, and I'm joined by a 22-year-old computer programmer from New Jersey and two guys from Australia on 30-hour plane ride from Canberra to London via Singapore and train pass. LOTS of wine and talk and LOVELY evening and I STAGGER home after it appears vaporetti have stopped at 12:15. To closed Trattoria Madonna and MAGICALLY to Accademia bridge and to bed at 12:45, feeling FABULOUS. A classical GREAT evening, but just IMPOSSIBLE to describe and remember with the INTENSITY it carried for me.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 14. Wake at 7:20 and up and out at 7:40, figuring I've missed the recommended sunrise, but get to Giudecca overlook and sun is still DOWN, rising in a red ball at 7:55. Cold. Back to have breakfast, mandatory for 3500, of hot chocolate and rolls, and get to vaporetti for San Marco at 8:45, touring St. Mark's again, bright under morning sun, and mosaics AT TOP are good but Monreale had them ALL over. Marble patterns on walls and mosaics on floor are dynamite, though. Into "Titian to Greco" at Palazzo Ducale, for 2500 and bought 2000 ticket for PALAZZO, too, AFTER buying 180 slides for 14,000, 6 EACH! FIVE rolls of film! Exhibit is rather academic, not too sexy, and most of the El Greco's are NOT his usual style of brilliance! Out at 9:45 to Doges Palace's INCREDIBLE rooms and Tintorettos and Veroneses. Quickly through, out at 10:30, and climb Horlogio tower for GREAT uncut cocks on Moors and see and hear BOTH rotate and strike 11. Good shots! Down and back to check out of hotel and get to Ferrovia at 12:20 to find next train to Calalzo isn't till 3:10! Ask to get information timetable for REST of trip, INCLUDING busses to and from Cortina! Vaporetti back to Ca' Pesaro for one of the worst Museums of Modern Art ANYWHERE, even the two 1950 Calders are awful. Just junk! Oriental Museum closed for 13:30 at 13:28, despite heated argument. Vaporetti back and find St. Lucia open 8-12 and 16-18, and to Pizzeria Beau Brummel for a NICE big lunch, and good, but for 23,000 it SHOULD be! 2:50 to station and right front seat in three-car all-first-class train. Off at 3:10, not caught up yet, and north toward GREAT snow peaks rising through pink haze ahead (visible a bit MORE clear, though a bit MORE distant, than those from Milan). Really VERY flat until Corigliano at 4 pm, sun QUITE low but bright enough to cause everyone on LEFT to lower blinds. Train goes FAST, stops at FEW places, just LOVELY. VERY GENTLE hills north of Corigliano at 4:10, white peaks enticingly closer. Caught up and a week to go and LOTS of money left: 33,000 for six days AND $250 for CASH when I'm HOME. Clouds beginning to gather to south. Not a TRACE of snow on ground yet. Train emptying out, thank goodness. It was FULL getting into Venice last night. Sun has SET for most of Vittoria Veneto, right AT base of hills, at 4:15. Those little FLAPS I wondered about at bottom of windows keep CONDENSATION from forming. GREAT! Climb into a STEEP valley RIGHT after---and a long tunnel, too. Oh, for a dome-top car! At Novi at 4:30 there's traces of snow on the ground and traces of German in the signs: Zimmer. A two and a half minute tunnel ending in S. Croce del Lago (a NEAT place, seen for 10 seconds before NEXT tunnel) ends in TOTAL snow scene again, about four inches EVERYWHERE, mountain ramparts pink over east end of lake. COULD be EXTRAORDINARY reflections! Last tip loses pink light at 4:45, still an hour to Calalzo. Alpi-Polpet at 4:50. NICE-looking BOYS around. I still feel over-warm, stuffed, and sleepy after that big meal (and 6 hours' sleep last night?). Book explains that Dolomites are too STEEP to accumulate glaciers. Oh! That hour-long bus ride to Cortina is 30 km---20 mph! Reverses direction in Polpet. Train passes two cross-country skiers on road, going toward two BOOTS on road. Chalet architecture takes over from bare stone buildings that had replaced stuccoed stone. Valentina Cortese---Cortina Valentese---Cortina D'Ampezzo. At 5:05 in Longarone the snow peaks are WHITE as if MOONLIT. I breathe so hard so close to the window it fogs ANYWAY with flap. Big station, growing town. STUPENDOUS canyon scenery, rocks folded like under a dissecting microscope. Ospitale di Cadore at 5:20, snow still glowing white, sky still lightish blue---very faded blue denim in clefts, darker above. Lots of tunnels. Perarolo di Cadore at 5:30, still light (just) enough to see, but FABULOUS by day. Town below looks JUST like lit setup for a toy train under a children's Christmas tree. MUST sit on LEFT coming back! Town twinkling ahead at 5:40. HUGE dam. Ten-minute's climb, then DOWN to Calalzo. In at 5:44. Line of busses outside of station marked "Per Cortina," and they're to MANY places: Perarolo, Longarone, others, and ONE to Cortina. I take "death seat," then see that river will be on LEFT of road, so I move to fourth seat back on left, closest-to-front left. Do people KNOW, or just chance? Smell of gas on running bus. I feel silly writing so much---will I need chapstick, will I need sunglasses, how expensive will hotels be, will all three cable cars be working tomorrow? Only 68 pictures left, buy more film? 2000 to Cortina, leave at 6 and the whole road is a string of villages---most of road has street lights! VERY tired on way; early to bed. Into station, get return schedule just to be sure, and first hotel on road is Hotel Italia with room without bath for 20,000. It's wooden and rather loud, but he gives me a map and it looks pretty central and there turns out to be a shower in a bathroom, so I CAN bathe. Look at maps and out at 8 for GREAT snow sculptures (contest January 8-10) and look for couple menus and find Pizzeria el Franco (where I have to GET waiter to take my order with a "Prego!" twice). I have a good but small ham omelet, butter from a more accommodating waitress, and ask what a "Stivoletta" is and he says "beer" for 2000 I get a glass BOOT filled with local beer. Streets are slippery so I get back to room after quite a shivery CHILL. Hope I'm not coming down with something. Back to room at 9 to shower and doodle about room and get to bed about 10.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 15. Wake at 6:20 and doze till 7:15, when I get up and dressed and out to look at clear peaks before sunrise. Climb road to north and there's a sign for Mietres, so I follow up that road---walking in the middle of the street for non-icy surface---and get to Piscina at 7:55 for first sunlight on peaks and guy drives up who says lift opens at 8:30. Feet get VERY cold standing there looking at hills, but crowds of kids start arriving with skis and it starts a bit early and I'm UP at 8:30, borrowing a blanket, paying 4800, and skiers are coming down through woods already. Up to first landing and I'd have fallen on ice on exit if not for strong arm of helper. Top is a bit easier, more soft snow to get footing on. This top is still in trees, so there's no good shot except on my way back down, when some of the ascendees shout "Ciao" at me---Cortina, unlike Bolzano and Merano, is TOTALLY Italian, which I think is rather NICE. Down at 9:25 and decide to hunt for 12 Via dello Stadio, but get to Ice Stadium and wander PAST road, ask, then ask again of a handsome skier who speaks good English. Around stadium and past busload of clanking skiers and in for loaded 10 am ascent, every 20 minutes, but a still 11,000 and SOMETHING about an abbonamento (subscription) for 14,000 for other places that I can't locate so don't take, possibly stupidly. Really terrifying ascent past HUGE cliffs FAR above crags on very DISTANT towers and a shuddery stop and slow ascent to the cage and then long swings on the huge cable that are really chilling. Get to top to find stairs unshoveled of four feet of snow to VERY top, so take pictures around---light battery FROZEN and useless! Down to restaurant level at 11 and look around and eat, taking brief notes on page 135: Up Meitre at 8:30, down at 9:30, up Tofana at 10, to top at 10:30, 25 F, feels colder. Haze rising. Eat from 11:30-12, HUGE smoked pork and kraut and beer and good vegetable soup to which I add LOTS of tasty cheese. Clunking of skiers in enormous boots really funny to watch, but some NICE people ski! Down and skid way back to hotel at 12:45 to say I'm staying, photo ice sculptures and find the tourist office closed 12:30-3, so I'm up to Faloria at 1:45 to find belvedere CLOSED for a long time and this goes only to SECOND top for 7000. Up with lots of kids, direct second connection, and AGAIN up a SHEER face of crags dotted with goat tracks and tiny snow-slide marks. Great bright sun at top and I'm around to garbage dump to see that only LOWER Cristallo SKI lift is working---upper would be GREAT, VERY steep slope. Use binoculars and look at changing shadows---BEGINNING to be bored with CONSTANT splendor of Alps---good to keep MOVING. Back to sit on porch amid screaming kids for a bit, back to watch 4 pm shadows, and down at 4:30 at sunset for the village. Matthau-Jackson film is DUBBED, no news of ice competition of 15-16-17 except for 2:30 Sunday, so I'm back to room to take off shoes and socks and get under blankets, but legs still cold so I take off pants and get ALL under covers till 6:45, do lightwork till 7:45, when I'm up to dress, deciding to eat IN since the 5 C heat has melted lots of ice into water that will now FREEZE into slickness. Down to dining room and it's FUN. (Note on previous writing: That's "haze rising," but you'd think I was STONED.) How do you capture the feeling: the strange Italian father and Scotch mother, son like father, only beautiful; daughter like mother, only with a sense of style (except it's like Feiffer's "Family" (WHATEVER the name of the play was---"Grown Ups"). when the daughter tells a joke and the mother asks "Was that the end?"---the lovely waitress reading the menu to me in English, and the fumbling with a full tray behind 205's door when I pass, and when I hold the door open for her she smiles and says "Multo gentile." THEN the guy leaves 206 with tan leatherette pants, butterscotch "wooly paws" on feet, and a plaid shirt that he starts tucking in when he sees me. Totally unpredictable (as when the tables are mostly laid out with NUMBERS (but obviously the "family" is here on "pensione," because she says the pork in cream-onion sauce was on the menu BEFORE), but they give me a table set for three with NO number) and surprisingly English---the table of five Scotch in the corner. Wine makes me woozy, the fried mozzarella was more INTERESTING than TASTY with a round of paté surmounted with a carrot slice; the roast beef was passable, the potato tasted "off" and the cauliflower was a soggy disaster, not at all preparing me for the TRIUMPH of the "chocolate cake," a layer of chocolate cream between two white-cake layers, topped with shaved chocolate of a PERFECT sweet-semi-sweetness, dusted with powdered sugar. I leave 1000 under plate out of sheer exuberance, but the meal has to add at least 10,000 to my bill---and cheap at THAT price. Up drowsy with wine and write notes. Get to bed again about 9, to be hit with a nice fantasy: I actually did a session this evening on "City of Light" consciousness. The City of Light would be Cortina IF the waitress who thought I was "multo gentile" would knock on my 208 and offer herself to me and I'd request a boy and she'd furnish me one who'd like me and who I'd like. THAT would be the CITY OF LIGHT. Mustn't forget this morning's dream of seeing not a mountain but a set of roller coaster hills at the end of a valley and a female tour guide leading me onto a rubber boat much like the Roaring Rapids of Great Adventure, and we are swept onto a "phony river" leading to the roller coaster that had an artificial whirlpool in the center that came and went, rocking our raft back and forth and enabling other "participants" to dive into the water and float into the maelstrom or swim under the crests to avoid it. In a few more minutes hit another lump to write: "Everything I see is beautiful. I cup you in my arms: my left arm along your back, your head on my left shoulder; my right arm through your legs and up your spine, holding you as a curve of life in my arms. I kiss all that is beautiful and hope you will suffer my lips long enough for them to drink their fill. You have beauty and youth to offer, I only wisdom and age. Possibly we two can combine into truth. What else can I say?" Then turn to other thoughts: Buy 20 slide trays, look into Matta for MY idea of bodies with RED where the intensest feeling is---from Naples Royal Palace, of all places. That emptied me enough to fall asleep about 10.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 16. Wake at 6:20 to piss, still black out, then doze and write more notes: 7:15 am: Incredible how my mind THRONGS with ideas when I get close to returning to New York. First, it says to remember to note a dream fragment from this morning: Brooke Shields and whoever he is (falsely) in their movie of "Romeo and Juliet," shaking snow from their hair and kissing gently (as in the ad) and saying "If only we could be on an island alone together." Second, it remembers my smelling myself under the blanket, a combination of farts from having to shit and foot smell from forgetting to bring an extra pair of socks, and I think of Foot-Shit Pong, which sounds like the name of a Chinese dignitary. Third, it returns to writing, how I should try AGAIN to be published, and then to computers, thinking how computers could speed indexes AND writing (with special fears on how to maintain files for power failures, errors, and restarts), and should I be painted, and who to have sex with, and correspondence (Christmas cards) to catch up with, and my next trip (Virginia Beach and Atlanta and Florida in April? French vineyards with Paul in July? Driving Trento-Adige with JJ and Erio?), photography---making slides of best of Guatemala and Alaska, buying five new trays and five STORAGE trays of about 400, learning new camera; paying bills and seeing people and catching up with mail and papers and magazines, then doing LOTS of work to 1) fill current savings account to about $2000, 2) pay tax and fill IRA and Keogh, 3) pay for next trip, 4) pay for a computer, 5) pay for self-publishing 2-3 books. And AGAIN I didn't think to take a picture of Erio! MUST remember Edgardo and Marina and Eduardo and Sandra and Dennis and Geejo!---which I didn't! Then take a good shit and catch up to date by 8:15. Ready for the end of the trip: today Verona, Sunday and Monday Milan, Tuesday Zurich, Wednesday home! Down to breakfast, in DIFFERENT room (reminds me of my thought last night that travel is (or could be made into!) a game VERY much like Dungeons and Dragons: the maze changes every day, there are the terrible monsters Chiuso and Terremoto, there are incantations in foreign languages that no one understands, and can have dire consequences when you choose to say "Yes" or "NO,") with hot chocolate and NO record of room number. Out to German-speaking desk clerk who's relieved when I can pay later. To room and open shutters and write this. Brush teeth, shave, look with binox to Cristallo across the street, search through drawers: nothing else to do. Pack, piss, pay 52,500 bill (breakfast was INCLUDED yesterday, dinner WAS 10,000 and the wine 2500), and buy 2000 ticket to Calalzo at 9:30. It's a pain to be caught up---I write more. At least this trip I haven't been wishing it to be OVER, like last few. Nor do I particularly wish I had MORE time---just ANOTHER time for Rome and Florence and driving between and around and in Alps. No real flight-fears yet, though I can feel a bit of metabolism-quickening just writing that. Just hope I can find something to do in Milan on MONDAY. Writing more pages than I'd thought---saving "Pnin" for the Pnane. Number pages to 165. Cute kids on platform---all skiers have these marvelous THIGHS. Leave 9:55: perfect day. An ice sculpture HAS a spray of WATER coming from its top! HUGE one halfway to Calalzo. Bright sun, traffic, beautiful Mount Pelmo on way there. In at 10:50 and wait on platform till 11 and suddenly a two-car autowagon revs up on the TRUNK line. Board at 11:02, my choice of left front-going out, three first-classers. Leave at 11:09---hasn't really SNOWED here in a while. Sun makes a million sparkles in the snow. About a hundred KIDS get on at Longarone, and of COURSE the idiot with the computer that plays tunes sits across from me. Twenty minutes late into Polpit and kids EVERYWHERE. Belluno at 12:15 (scheduled 11:56) and kids get OUT with great shouts, but LOTS of people waiting to get ON. Belluno seems not REALLY so well-sited as Merano. So it was GOOD to go to Venice! So from here it's DIFFERENT territory. Leave 23 minutes late! ANOTHER huge crowd waits in Feltre, leave 22 minutes late. Some trees still retain morning's FROST at 1 pm. Snow and mountains pretty well gone by Pederobba at 1:20, 18 minutes late. Dead RABBITS impaled above rows on one farm. Hazy SNOW gives way to hazy GROUND. Montebelluno has no Monte, just another CROWD of people. Into Castelfranco 17 minutes late now, with my Verona train leaving 12 minutes after our scheduled arrival. Out of Camposampiero, last stop, 9 minutes late. Into Padua with FIVE minutes to spare and board train for Verona, on seat reserved AFTER Verona, seating only THREE across in GRAND armchairs. Still foggy past industry of Verona. Back to hotel, suitcase in room 66 with a DOUBLE bed, and I check Verona book to find that the Arena is open till 5:30. Out at 4:15 and walk there quickly, which is good since it's only open till 5 and they stop ticketing thirty minutes BEFORE. It's in mint condition, so it's hard to see it as 1700 hears OLD. Climb to top and take pictures, out quickly in fog to Via Mazzini, a crowded promenade with elegance and push and cruising (straight) all mixed in. To Piazza Signoria and see a sign for the lift to the tower. Dash in at 5, it closes at 5:30, and to the top to take VERY foggy pictures of a LOVELY town and climb lots of steps to the very top for more views. Down at 5:20, almost dark, and see other piazza and look for signs of opera, but nothing. Then see the sign for the Pinocchio exhibit and BACK along Via Mazzini to Gran Guardia for GREAT free show of books from various countries, painting and drawings from various times, and four TV shows, of which I see one before they close at 6:20. Back to square and find Cangrande Restaurant in one of the palaces in a domed painted room, and it's MARVELOUS. 28 MEN, of which seven are old regulars, two with glasses, others only 3 with glasses and I'm the ONLY one gray! Fabulous place! Only women are the sommeliera and the waitress. Great Penna alla Boscaiolo---straight large macaroni shaped like PEN tips at both ends, with "wood" mushrooms and good sauce. Good red wine, too, 1/4 liter WITH the 7000 meal, and I have another 1/4 for 500 with my decent liver with butter (grease) and sage, interesting taste; and GREAT mixed salad. Out at 8 feeling MARVELOUS, and am walking back Via Porta Nuova and decide to RETURN to old town, all pedestrian. One plaza TOTALLY undermined by Roman excavations, nice cordon permitting a view down. Foggier and foggier and north past bridges and churches and LOTS of castle-type homes. To marvelous façade of Duomo, and I must come BACK here. South along Via Cavour and more palaces, pedestrians, and wine-fog, LOVELY feeling of joy to BE there. Guess my way across the merging lanes of traffic after passing elegant couples going into the Castel Vecchio to some Circulo, quiet magical, and see the lit oblong of the Hotel Rossi sign! Up and bed about 9:30, enchanted totally with Verona, vowing to return.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 17. 4:20 am: bizarre and very detailed dream, ending with "Santa Nubé della Tubé: "I've been told to check TV for a strange classic set of cartoons about a little boy, and I'm switching channels (TV of "Pinocchio" last night at Gran Guardia?) and find a long closeup of a Bert Lahr-like face made-up like the Chinese Opera Monkey, cheeks puffing in and out, eyes alternately crossing and gotchwise; face darkened with grease paint. Camera draws back to show kid puffing at a dope-pot behind a Japanese emperor, trying to put him to sleep, puffing up the dark dope-smoke, but every so often getting a whiff himself and flicking a long red tongue in and out, humorously woozy. He blows harder and harder at the flames, oblivious that he's set the emperor afire. Emperor's back STARTED TOWARD him, but as flames spread they're between emperor's feet and his tube (robe) catches fire and he "wakes" and roars with anger and the boy topples backward down the stairs, followed quickly by the emperor. Scene shifts to the bottom of the stairs, where servants quickly see what's going on and rush to get coffins. First blackened body hits the floor with a thud and is popped into the first coffin and carried off (JUST like in a Pinocchio drawing), but the second body doesn't FALL. Fade to a very high altitude, years later, of a Japanese pavilion, pastoral in the spring, as an emperor leaves to paint in his garden, and the boy's voice floats up: "Today is beautiful, so I will paint in the garden." Scene draws BACK and this is all on an artist's PALLET, and the artist is the BOY, who's drawn a picture ON the pallet, containing a square, raised, colored red, and is drawing a colored shape part on, part off the square. The square gradually enlarges into (or the pallet changes shape into) the shape of a map of the U.S. and the "outer drawing changes into the raised area the shape and position of the state of Nevada: and he draws three lines along the lower side, saying one is the Tyrean River, one the Truckee River, the third one the (?) River, starting south of the Grand Canyon, here A." and he's talking in a high, breathless child's voice like in the Hubley's Academy Award winning cartoons that use the voices of their kids. Whew, it takes till 4:40 to WRITE. Then up about 6:40 and take a GOOD shower and down at 7:40 to find breakfast is NOT included in the 30,000 bill. Lug luggage and have a chocolate and brioche (same in Italian as French and English) and onto train. Leave at 8:19 to Milan. VERY foggy most of the way, but some patches of clear. When there's no kids screaming or women rasping or Germans choking I concentrate on the unpleasant loudness and gruffness of the voice of one of the two men in my compartment! In Brescia the car fills. So far, for view, this has been the WORST leg of the trip! Debate doing out WALKING from 10-12, until Edgardo returns. Seeing all the people reading papers makes me rather YEARN for the Sunday Times. Twelve minutes late out of Brescia. Check IBM files again---how many MONTHS (120?) did I ACTUALLY work for them: August 1959 to September 1968 minus three months for the USA and plus three months for the first summer equals 122 months?? Actually SNOW on ground, as well as frost on foliage. Into Milan at 10. Taxi for meter of 4500 and he says 5500 for "Festivi." Yeah. I give him 500 tip, too---stupid? Tell Marina of my trip in French, and Edgardo comes at 11:30 and talks on phone, and Geejo and Dennis come at 12 and I tell THEM about trip. Have a lunch of almost raw beef and a nice salad and amaro and Dennis drives me to La Scala and goes to box office (parking car RIGHT in front of door!) and finds they have box 11, first file, for 27,500. Good. Buy 8000 program and get on line at 1:35 for 1:45 opening of doors. Dash to box on destra, regardless map had it on LEFT, and get in JUST before another couple, who take two other front seats. Two OTHER couples arrive and we're 7! "Falstaff" at La Scala: First act from 2:30-3:10 doesn't tell me that I should revise my rather low opinion of the opera---and this staging by Giorgio Strehler (who has done 41 productions since 1946, including the Lohengrin) doesn't help at all: first scene much DARKER than the cover picture on the program in the Inn, the second lit only from the BACK so that the singers' faces aren't visible unless they're facing LEFT! Juan Pons as Falstaff doesn't "fill" the role, vocally, at least so far. I remember the Fenton of Luigi Alva MUCH better vocally than I've heard from Peter Kelen, but it's nice to SEE him jump into the hay wagon, do a somersault, and pick the cute Nanetta of Patricia Wise up. She actually TURNS, as the moon, on "La lune," which is nice. A table leg BREAKS at the start, and they have to get a new one and then have a LOT of trouble putting the table back UP for the same reason. None of the other parts stand out as yet, but the two women got tits. And the celebrated "nine voice ensemble" is brief and completely muddled. Second act (3:30-4:25) somewhat better, at least in the comic vein, and Giogio Zancanaro as Ford gets in some good notes in his duet with Falstaff. Audience liked it even better: three full curtain calls worth. First couple abandoned their seats to the other two women, who sat up MUCH closer. They may talk about me behind my back, but I haven't been verbally stabbed yet, to my knowledge. Third set (Act II, Scene 2) at least lit from the front, with a whole SUNKEN COURT that's quite a feat---but even with water thrown up (all over Nannetta), the "splash" of Falstaff isn't convincing. Lorin Maazel has changed into an OLD man (looks like a saggy Clive Barnes) FAST. Here I think a bag of junk that was just supposed to RATTLE when fallen BROKE and littered the stage with junk. No great shakes of music, that I can determine, except for a few pretty bars here and there. Odd, with age, how one is prepared to LOVE far fewer opera performances, but a far LARGER number of PEOPLE, if given the opportunity. First part of act three only from 4:33-5:10, and CURTAIN refused to close by about seven feet for ten seconds or so. ONLY when Alice sang about all the "ellis and ettis" of the fairy ring did the MUSIC sing, but Verdi put very LITTLE music to stop Boito's marvelous WORDS (look at them in libretto!) in the "drunk black cricket" song. Black cricket/hunter/chicken cacciatore nice connections. This final scene better be DYNAMITE! Only 3-4 seats empty in whole theater---and did I mention before that the CURTAIN TASSELS are BRASS and TINKLE? How BETTER the seating at San Carlo seemed than SEVEN in a La Scala box! And people ACTUALLY HANGING from top bars in second rows of 5th and 6th balconies. Overall impression is one of CHEAPNESS---almost NO forest for last scene and fairies are tawdry. Out at 5:45 and get lost AGAIN in streets, back at 6:30 to find Sandra as babysitter. We're out to dinner with Geejo and Dennis and Valeria and a guy I think is her BOYFRIEND (too cute for HER) and he was Geejo's LOVER (too cute for HIM, too!) and English Dennis, somewhat nicer this time, with BIG arms as he takes off his sweater. Drink four bottles of wine for eight of us, GREAT varied appetizers and desserts, and I have quail, tiny and touch, with polenta. Whole bill is 115,000 and I pay 50,000 for me and Edgardo and Marina. Back about 11, make up bed, and sleep quickly.
MONDAY, JANUARY 18. Wake at 7 and up at 8:20, everyone still home. Have an egg and four slices of toast and coffee and at 9:40 Lydia tries calling Luca (Geejo said he wanted to see me, and that GEEJO would call in PM), who'll return "between 2 and 3," unconsciously echoing "Falstaff" of yesterday! I'm out to places recommended by Dennis: Sant'Eustorgio, old, and a GREAT man turns on lights for me (for 1000) and I see all the chapels and bodies. Then up to San Lorenzo for mosaics from 300 AD and underpinnings and columns outside, then to Ambrosian at 11:30 for a peek at the reading room and a GREAT gallery, F from p. 155: Ambrosian: glove of Napoleon from Waterloo; hair (blond) of Lucrezia Borgia; Picture by Jan Bruegel dei Velluti, 1568-1625, Vaso di Fiori, Donazione card: Federico 1618! Buy books and go back to see the Breughels and the cartoon for "The School of Venice." Out at 12:30 and have nice lunch with two glasses of wine, and back to Lydia at 2:10 and Luca will call ME. I read National Geographics; Luca says come to his place at 6, and men come to talk to Marina about sanding terracotta floors. I take care of Eduardo a bit, cute, and Edgardo and I go shopping for groceries and wine 5:30-6 and then to Il Sagiatori for Luca's grand office (he looks like Pavarotti) and he gives me Arte di Colore. We talk and have Campari to 6:45, when he must get home to take train to Berlin at 7:30. He's coming to NYC for two weeks the end of May or "when he came last year." Geejo said "Come to dinner at 9," and at 7 I go there and he's not home yet. Buy 20,000 champagne and wander to Campo Romana, only warehouses, and tempted by "Raiders of the Lost Ark" but it doesn't start till 8. Back at 8 (after mixing with Gaeta in 35, not Gaita in 37) and Geejo JUST arrives. I read H.P.Lovecraft in Heavy Metal, and he used to live at 139 Clinton St. Geejo puts on music, Dennis arrives and I figure he has a HARELIP under his mustache. We eat rice and mushrooms, Valeria arrives, they play opera, have eggs under cabbage, wine and hot potatoes and at last my champagne at 11:30. I say I must leave, very pleased, and home at 12. Brush teeth and Edgardo leaves not saying phone will ring at 6:45. Tired to bed at 12:30.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 19. Wake at 4:30, doze, up at 6:35 and phone rings at 6:40. Pack and wash and wake Edgardo at 7:05, regretting STILL no pictures, last night or of THEM! Leave after awful coffee at 7:25, he drives fast, to station at 7:45 and NICE train (7:55) leaves 8:05. Conductor remarks it's the last day of my pass. VERY foggy out of Milan and snow piles up IMMEDIATELY alongside. Como and Lugano almost invisible, but after 9 am in Chiasso the snow peaks appear CLEAR above lower fog. My partner in car had to take train rather than FLY, but it NOW seems Zurich may be clear. Can't figure WHY ticket to Zurich from Chiasso is 54F or 41,000L, when I only remember paying $20 from Zurich to MILAN, and remember too late to exchange ticket (he says snobbily) from FIRST class to SECOND class! So I pay $20 extra for nice CAR. Spectacular "fog below, clear above" scene, and valley coming north to Bellinzona at 10. Then it's spectacularly clear for an hour but always it's IMPOSSIBLE to take pictures: either the view's too big, or we STOP at NO PLACE, or the train's moving too FAST to take an "open shutter" picture in FOG, or the tracks are between high trees, or utility poles cut across, or tunnels loom, or fog removes view, or it's too foggy to SEE, or the right COMBINATION never arises, or it's right into the SUN! Lots of signs to St. Gottard this time, even one to the actual village and a couple for the pass. Go through the tunnel 11:057-11:165, just 9 minutes. Fat fellow announces "Speiswagon" but though I'm hungry I don't care for HIM---AND I don't want to spend $20 for BREAKFAST and give MORE money to Swiss rail. Cart comes with drinks and coffee, but no FOOD. Then at 11:30 we descend into that white fog again, and the tracery of frost over EACH limb and twig, particularly WILLOWS, is extraordinarily beautiful, but AGAIN it's frustratingly impossible to take FROST-trees against SUN PEAKS. Catch up with this in various tunnels, VERY hungry by 12, when I finish to date, amazed because the formerly clear and beautiful shots available across the lake that Zurich is on are gone---total fog when it's not total tunnel. Again, one has to RETURN to Fluellen and Airolo and Erstein to get the PERFECT pictures of this marvelous "dawn-at-noontime frost-in-fog-against-sunlit peaks" drama. Switch from side to side, frontwards and backwards, but at last completely give up the idea of photos. It's all in the SEEING, anyway, and I DO hope to be BACK. Oh, yes, at 8 am this morning I decided to count the number of HOURS left: 37, exactly, just as many DAYS as the trip was! AND men were WORKING on the new highway through the mountains, too---VERY spectacular---but LITTLE snow in the PASS, in contrast to the LOVELY fall as I came SOUTH. Ground snow here rather thin and somewhat DUSTY. No knowing WHAT it'll be in Zurich NOW. Zurich 59 km by road at noon. Frost and fog both still VERY thick. Hey, maybe frost-photos STILL possible in ZURICH! Black birds in totally white branches in Arth-Goldau at 12:05. Some MARVELOUS old houses in villages. Interesting that lakes aren't frozen at all except for tiny disks around twigs from shore-trees entering water. As we move, frost waves and wanes, much like local melt-patterns in fields: depends on water, air, movement of both? In at 12:45, look at hotel list a LONG time and it's at LEAST 60F = $30 ANYWHERE, and I finally settle on Simplon, close for 49F, and look at maps, phone for plane confirmation, and get out to eat in Rheinfeld Bierhalle for 11.80, GOOD veal almost in a BÉARNAISE sauce with LOTS of fries and good soup and salad and fennel and carrots. Then to Kunsthaus, taken OVER by the awful G's: Fritz Glarner, 1899-1972, everything given by his wife's will, who died in 1979, and floor B has Max Gluber, 1898-1973, maybe one better than failed-Mondrian Glarner, but failed-Monet Gluber at least STARTED earlier and LASTED longer. In at 3:20 after seeing library entrance, going to corner, being told THERE "library," to library and be told AROUND, and AROUND is the OFFICE, so I try $3 and get IN for 2F. JAN Brueghel, the elder, 1568-1625. Younger 1601-1678. Good naked Marysus strung up and very interesting Holdins and Fusslis, but when I'm finished at 5:30 (some GREAT van Goghs!) I'm so exhausted that everything to buy isn't what I want or is too expensive. Oh, well, I'll probably be back anyway. Out to find exchange rate at 1.8, so a factor of 5.5, not 7.5, is more reasonable, cutting my 49F room from $37 to $27! Not bad, but there's no SHOWER. Wander dark slippery streets (getting lost) to Kongresshalle for LAST 10F ticket for tonight's Mahler's 9th, right above orchestra. Out at 5:45 and to hotel, getting lost AGAIN, at 6:20, impressed by the fact that the WHOLE CITY seems like Fifth Avenue: VERY expensive, elegant, and well decorated. Rest for an hour, having found that it costs 3F to take a BATH. Out at 7:30 and go by more direct Banhofstrasse and get there at 7:50, finding you MUST check your coat for 1F! Large, rather plain place, like Amsterdam's Concertgebouw. See woman SEATED INSIDE HALL (lots of unsold seats OUT in BACK LOBBY) and sit next to her, and we have nice chat about her week in New York (Isaac Stern in Carnegie Hall) when visiting her brother in Washington. Haitink is very serious and the symphony is VERY sour and bitter and discordant, never really RESOLVING. Sour old man. First movement controlled 8:20-8:45, second 8:47-9:05, third 9:06-9:20, and last 9:23-9:45, and about seven minutes of VERY enthusiastic applause. Get coat fast and find all the restaurants on THIS side of the river CLOSED, so across and have good Pizza Padrone for 9.80 and two beers for 3.40, nicely full and liked looking at waiter's full Italian arms. Back to hotel at 11:10 and bed 11:20.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20. Wake at 4:30 (surprisingly common) and up at 6:40 to bowl-wash till 7:20, feeling MUCH better. Pack and breakfast 8:40-8:55, very pleasant breakfast room, and out to follow tourist road (after buying ticket to airport) to Grossmunster, very plain, but open only at 10! Watch ducks dive for fish in river, swimming to keep up with current, being dive-bombed by gulls. VERY efficient how water rolls off a duck's back. Marienkirke closed till 10, too, plain, and I wander some BACK (living) streets to get to (I thought) closed Landesmuseum, then see a school group go in and find they DO open at 10. Get 36F for $20 and back to hotel at 9:40 to phone Capital and find takeoff delayed from 12:20 to 12:40, so it's "there at 11:10," so I CAN see museum. He opens rope for me at 9:56, nice, and the place is DYNAMITE: centered around magnificent baronial hall with armor, helmets, and intricate dagger-scabbards are loads of goodies: tin-soldier dioramas of famous battles, stone carving from prehistoric times, models of Roman baths and villas from 100-300 AD, grave finds from Europe, great old money and medals, whole rooms of exquisite wood paneling from 1700 and 1800, a floor of native and richer costumes, a neat tower of toys, and a priest's wing with an extraordinary jeweled monstrance that I get a slide of, along with a sexy little guy they have rotating. Back to hotel at 11 to pack and pay 50.50 bill, getting to terminal at 11:16, just missing 11:12 airport train. 11:35 train gets in at 11:51, use dolly to check-in place, getting seat 22E since they have NO right windows left. Spend 2.7 of last 3F on chocolate, now ENTIRELY back to US money. Board at 12:30 to find 22F empty---again! Catch up on writing, talk to guy behind me about his six months' living in Anchorage, and get sunglasses from coat when DISK of SUN can be seen through tiny cold snow flurries. They pass out a nice little bag of Capitol-labeled goodies (forgot: NO frost on trees IN Zurich, but WERE at 11:45 in SUBURBS toward airport---still pretty thick in fog, though planes are leaving). Announce an 8-hour 20-minute flight, 500 minutes! Finish this at 1:12 (7:12 am NYC time). Should be in by 4 pm, great! Lit cab ride home! AND though row 22 IS over the wing, 21 and 23 are extra-wide for the two emergency exits, so we have NORMAL space and NORMAL window position! Off at 1:20, and I REALLY TRY to spear some of the "Oh, God, please, God" fears. HIGH Alps strung all along LEFT, but into SUN. Clouds cover most except bit of north of England and south of Ireland. Lunch OK 11:30-12 (3 hours difference). Then solid clouds. Read lots, see some of Newfoundland and Cape Cod, all of Long Island, and land at 3:41. Lots of slush, 33 F. Tired, slightly. Off almost last into a gimmicky tunnel-become-bus that lowers, moves, rises, and THEN requires you walk down two flights of stairs and two blocks distance, but bag is WAITING for me, WITH belt around it! Into customs line (didn't even HAVE to get passport stamped or checked!) at 4:10, and back to "Pnin." ALMOST finish but don't have to open anything and pass at 4:30, get cab with GOOD driver and taking North Conduit gets me here at 5:05 for $15.90 and $2.60 tip = $18.50. Upstairs and ALL IS WELL!
DAY-BY-DAY LOG THROUGH ITALY: DECEMBER 15, 1981 - JANUARY 20, 1982
TUE, DEC. 15: Capitol flight delayed takeoff from 8 to 10:45 pm. Winter storm.
WED, DEC. 16: Good food, cloudy flight, land in snow-swept Zurich at noon. City so gray under snow that I board train for Milan, passing through the St. Gotthard tunnel amid a spectacular snowfall for real winter glory! Edgardo and Marina's apartment in Milan is grand and modernistic, and I even get my own room. Marina prepared a grand dinner for me and friends.
THU, DEC. 17: Food tastes SO good: a pear and cauliflower last night a thrill to taste. Edgardo takes me walking to La Scala for tickets, saying I have to return to stand on line for tickets for the highly touted production of "Lohengrin." Poldi Pezzoli Museum grand and warm after an icy clamber atop the roof of the pure white Duomo, looking over the entire city to the Alps in the north. Have a drink while people-watching in the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, then Edgardo drives Sandra and me to an English church for Christmas carols, after which Geejo and Dennis join us for dinner.
FRI, DEC. 18: Four box seats bought for the "Lohengrin" on Sunday! "Only" $40 each! Fill up on Virgins and Christs at the Brera Gallery, great fish lunch, and it SNOWS as I tour the enormous brick Sforza Castle galleries. Edgardo recommended the Civil Picture Gallery particularly, and looking at its brilliantly restored and cleaned collection of paintings, I could understand his recommendation. Quick pizza before "Swan Lake" at La Scala.
SAT, DEC. 19: Quiet day of planning, looking over the farmers' market in the street below our windows, and phoning Paris and Naples to discuss the rest of my trip. Avant-garde show and magic circus at Piccolo Scala at night.
SUN, DEC. 20: Borrow Edgardo's car for the Monastery of Pavia, still in use and magnificent. Quick steak-and-fennel lunch and we get to "Lohengrin" for splendid production from 2:30-7---we get our money's worth! Sandra drives me to the apartment of Geejo and Dennis, where they feed me and entertain me by singing (well, too!) the Sutherland-Horne soprano repertory. All Italians are pazzo (crazy), and some are pazzo-er than others!
MON, DEC. 21: Train to Naples, with confusions and gray skies, and along the ancient Via Tribunale for sights (and smells) of Naples on the way to Piazza Dante and good seafood (and cheap) at the Dante and Beatrice.
TUE, DEC. 22: More confusion, more misleading signs, more people trying to help who mix things up more! Palermo train leaves late, so I see none of the Sicilian countryside since we ferry across the Straits of Messina at dusk. Get rooked by the taxi to Hotel Sole---restaurants closed by 10 pm!
WED, DEC. 23: Train to Erice via Trapani, conductor helpful. Great views through clouds, but it's cold and windy, not the best time of year for Sicily, although the food is still cheap and wine cheaper still.
THU, DEC. 24: Wander Palermo streets, lots of churches and parks, and Jean-Jacques arrives in time for us to see Carla Fracci in a Stravinsky program at the Politeama Garibaldi (which replaces the Teatro Massimo, currently under reconstruction). Dinner at the very good Nuovo Castelnuovo Restaurant.
FRI, DEC. 25: Since everything in Palermo's closed on Christmas, we drive south to Segesta, enjoying the temple and amphitheater, but can't find ANY place open to eat, finally having two toasted ham-and-cheese sandwiches at 3 pm---but they were delicious! To Sciacca for a hotel and pizza dinner!
SAT, DEC. 26: Selinunte temples, with the guide personally conducting our tour through the ruins, a hit of the trip. Bright sun, chilly wind, coats in order. Lost on road through Menfi for Agrigento, expensive lunch in an empty Jolly Hotel, and the ruins seem like a stage set we can't enter after we'd enjoyed "playing" in the ruins of Selinunte. Akrobello Hotel heatless!
SUN. DEC. 27: Museum filled with fantastically beautiful pieces, and we get lost five times on confused roads with confusing signs before ending up a one of the best restaurants in Italy: the Centrale in Enna, imaginatively seasoned roast fresh mushrooms starting a great meal. Through Piazza Armerina for the 3rd century mosaics in Casale, another extraordinary site and sight. Lost, lost, lost into Ragusa, barely finding a place to EAT.
MON, DEC. 28: Go shower-less in heatless San Giovanni Hotel; breakfast at the Ragusa Cathedral Coffee Shop; drive through Ibla and Modica and Noto for "new" cities built after Etna eruptions in the 1600s. Warm Hotel Jolly in Siracusa, but everything's closed on Monday. See Fountain of Arethusa and lots of stray cats managing to live on inaccessible beaches. Cathedral incorporates columns from a Greek temple. Good rustic restaurant Jonio.
TUE, DEC. 29: Archeological Museum closed 9-11 for "assembly" of striking workers. To Museo Bellomo, Greek theater, and Ear (cave) of Dionysus; return to superb Archeological Museum and good lunch at Minerva Restaurant. Private tour through Teatro Bellini in Catania, wander busy town, and find La Perla Ionica resort for a room, but have to return to Acireale to eat.
WED, DEC. 30: Modern resort rooms extraordinarily poorly designed; get lost four times trying to find the road up Mt. Etna, and when we get to the funicular, it's closed because of high winds. Down bumpy roads to Giarre and up coast to Taormina, a paradise of houses and restaurants and parks perched on three successively higher terraces above the sea. Luxurious lunch at Il Maniero at the topmost peak of Castelmolo and enjoy view of entire coast. Greek theater closed an hour before posted closing time. North to Messina, south to La Perla to pick up forgotten passports, north to Messina for a dreadful dinner with slovenly waiters at the Hotel Jolly.
THU, DEC. 31: Antonella de Messina exhibit blocks out regular museum goodies: drive to Milazzo for lunch and a launch to Vulcano, where I puff up the slopes to get good whiffs of sulfur vents at the top and enjoy the view. Return through a pink-orange-yellow sunset to Palermo for quiet New Year's Eve.
FRI, JAN. 1: Monreale Cathedral interior totally encrusted with brilliant golden mosaics; back to Palermo for the best meal yet: lunch at Charleston, totally deluxe meal for less than $40 for two. For contrast, see the mummies in the Capuchin Cemetery, then get lost trying to find the top of Monte Pelligrino for a cold view over Palermo Harbor. Lousy dinner at Bellini.
SAT, JAN. 2: Jean-Jacques leaves early and I tour the Palazzo Normani, St. John the Hermit, the gardens of the Villa D'Aumale, the Archeological and National Museums, and various parks. Take entire afternoon and evening to get by train and ferry to Reggio di Calabria; beer and sandwiches for dinner.
SUN. JAN. 3: The Bronze Warriors of Riace, on exhibit after 2000 years under the sea and eight years being restored, are astoundingly beautiful: I buy books and slides and posters of them. Train to Naples through a tan-and-purple sunset, and the Palace Hotel restaurant is surprisingly good.
MON, JAN. 4: Tourist office confuses openings of museums for me, so I have a $7 taxi ride from Capodimonte to St. Martino. Great lunch overlooking Bay of Naples at Belvedere Restaurant---most restaurants only serve WHOLE bottles of wine for $2-3! Many days take on a GREAT glow after lunch! By city bus to the zoo and to Edenlandia, an amusement park with a ride NEW to me called the Alpenblitz, a small ride with big roller-coaster sensations. Enormous difficulties getting back to the hotel with the bus system. Frustrations!
TUE, JAN. 5: Holler at bank clerk who refuses to exchange money. He does it. I'm becoming a Neapolitan! Tour churches: San Lorenzo Maggiore, Santa Maria in Purgatorio, and others, all with very elaborate (some life size) manger scenes called Presepes, an art form in Naples. Archeological Museum one of the best, even with many rooms closed after last year's earthquake. Return to Capodimonte Museum, worth the effort, but none of these have guidebooks! More bus troubles. Wander streets sightseeing and have a pizza dinner.
WED, JAN. 6: More churches: San Domenico Maggiore (containing the tomb of the first Bishop of New York!), Gesu Nova, Santa Chiara (with a ceramic-walled cloister), and others. Royal Palace mostly closed; take funicular to Villa Floridiana; end in the aquarium and walk back to the hotel through a bustling Piazza Mercato (market) alive with shellfish. Omelet for dinner at Mimi's.
THU, JAN. 7: Cloud cover breaks enough to encourage me to take the Circumvesuviana train to Pompeii, taking all day even though half of it is closed after the earthquake. (I sneak into some of the closed areas anyway.) The SIZE of the area is most impressive, but it's hard to get an idea of interiors when most of them are locked---I managed to find keys to only two of them. The Villa of Mysteries is somewhat overrated except for the TOPIC of the frescos. Overcharged for a good lunch at 3:30; stayed, exhausted, in hotel.
FRI, JAN. 8: Take a chance with the weather and get the hydrofoil to Capri, and the island wins me over: few autos allowed, marvelous footpaths along precipitous cliffs looking over strong surf (too strong to allow boats into the Blue Grotto), and hardly any tourists. Bus to Anacapri, with more cars, and since the funicular's under repair I climb Monte Solaro on foot. Great view, NO one on top but a hungry cat. Back in time for "Giselle" at San Carlo.
SAT, JAN. 9: Ischia today, more "rustic" than Capri, but not as spectacular. The "Presepe Vivente" (living manger) didn't seem to be taking place. Tour the island by public bus, some great views and colorful people, but COLD. Elegant dinner at Harry's (for $22, most expensive in Italy, it better be) and then a DYNAMITE production of "Cenerentola" at San Carlo, better than Scala!
SUN, JAN. 10: Complicated train itinerary north, horrendously expensive lunch for mediocre food (and, as usual, I'm not carrying enough cash for the weekend) on the train. Read lots of Nabokov in fog. Expensive Verona hotel.
MON, JAN. 11: Snowing! Manager says it NEVER snows in Verona. I check heavy (with books) suitcase with hotel and travel north to Brenner Pass, where there's five feet of snow---but in the Alps, where it belongs! Impressive route through quaint old snow-covered villages, just like in picture books. One hour of Bolzano seems to about do it. Complicated connections take me to Brunico, in the middle of the Dolomites and ski season and German culture. Have great trouble finding a hotel, but German food tasty for a change.
TUE, JAN. 12: Beautiful mountain-enclosed town shows itself at dawn as I ride toward San Candido, the end of the train line; Dolomite spires peeping under clouds and fog; train filled with clunking skiers. Back through Bolzano, north to Merano, and west to spectacular Merano Malls, returning to charming Merano for the evening, planning more train rides and enjoying Germanic air.
WED, JAN. 13: Walk hills and promenades of perfectly lovely town. Must come back here in summer sometime: marvelous setting, a great place to relax. Apple trees everywhere; in blossom time it would look like Eden! Board train through Castelfranco and precipitous mountains, and strike up conversation with Erio Ziglio, who lives here and studies in Scotland, which explains the English book he was reading that led me to talk to him. He says the tides are higher than ever in Venice, so I end up continuing south with him to Venice. He makes the end of my trip by saying there are busses to Cortina d'Ampezzo (where I'd wanted to go, but the train didn't connect) from Calalzo, where I was planning to go. Great! Tides in Venice have receded, but he gets me a room in the Pension Accademia, lovely place, and I get a ticket at the Teatro Malibran for Carla Fracci in "Bilitis and the Fawn," which is awful, but the theater and people met were very pleasant.
THU, JAN. 14: Sunrise over Venice! To St. Marks and the Doges' Palace for an exhibit of paintings, more museum sightseeing (one of the worst Museums of Modern Art ANYWHERE!), and a good meal before the train leaves for Calalzo. Stupendous mountain scenery into Cortina; find a hotel and feel pleased with trip.
FRI, JAN. 15: Dawn is breathtaking; I wander rural roads and take a ski lift up one hillside, then down and a gondola to 3000 meters to the top of Tofana, with a mind-boggling view of range after range of mountains. Great mountaintop lunch and down to the valley and up to the Faloria ski resort, full of people enjoying the bright sunlight for a change. "Family" dinner in hotel.
SAT, JAN. 16: Ice sculptures, changing mountain panoramas, and skiers everywhere make the bus and train back to Verona exciting. Verona, sadly, is very foggy, but that doesn't spoil the real beauty of the old central town. Great exhibit on "Pinocchio" through the decades around the world, and the Cangrande Restaurant near Verona's famous piazzas is a great bargain with delicious food. Wander medieval streets in a delirium of joy in the fog.
SUN, JAN. 17: Return to Milan through total fog, in time for lunch at Edgardo's and for Dennis to drive me to La Scala for my ticket to "Falstaff" for that afternoon. Get lost for about the fiftieth time on confusing Milan streets. Dinner out with Geejo and Dennis and Valeria and various friends, wonderful.
MON, JAN. 18: More churches: Sant'Eustorgio, San Lorenzo; and a great Ambrosian picture gallery started in 1618! Visit Luca in his office at 11 Saggiatore (he gives me a huge book to add to my already-weighty luggage), and end with dinner at Dennis and Geejo's with Valeria and more music and singing and wine.
TUE, JAN. 19: Edgardo drives me to the train for Zurich on the last day of my Railpass, and the fog clears as we move into Switzerland, but then about noon the fog returns and every tree, branch and twig, is enrimed with a crystal coat of frost that's astoundingly beautiful. Zurich is fun to wander around in, the Kunsthaus exhaustingly full of some dreadful paintings. More good simple German food, ending up at Mahler's 9th at the Kongresshalle.
WED, JAN., 20: The incredibly rich Landesmuseum climaxes my tour in Zurich, and I board the plane that's only twenty minutes late this time, but for the second time I managed by luck to get a window seat while being about the last one to check in. The whole range of the Alps was glaring in the midday sun, sadly impossible to photograph but impressive to see. Lots of Canada and the United States visible, and even though the flight was eight hours and a half, thanks to the time changes I even got back to my apartment in the daylight. And I actually had $250 in traveler's checks left over!