VENICE WITH DENNIS
May 1 - 9, 1978
FLIGHT FROM NYC TO VENICE
MONDAY, MAY 1. [page 2960 missing] with grass already, so Dennis smokes and we drink lots and get very stoned, and I'm piling things into my suitcase, forgetting the transformer in the haste so we have to brush with tiny brushes through the trip, and Dennis is getting a cold so he takes some Coriceden and makes me take the rest of them in my pills. We're so soused we're obviously not going to take a subway and bus, so I phone the car service and they say one will be here at 10:45, so I finish washing up the dishes that Azak didn't finish, pack, dress, tell John to get the Times, and we're out at 10:45 just as the car drives up, and Dennis and Azak are so stoned they doze until we get there at 11:20, they pay $5 each and I pay $6 to make up a $16 fee for a $14 trip and we're in to find we're the last three to check in: everyone still came at 10 pm!
TUESDAY, MAY 2. Sit until 12:08, check into the waiting lounge, jammed, and grumble that we get SAME seats on way BACK! (Notes in back of "Tantra of the Great Liberation.") I start reading at 12:20, we take off at 12:30, then I stop, we have a snack until 2, then lights out, but I can't sleep. Pilot announces the aurora, and I run to the back window to see first an arcing band, then a thicker section in the middle, but I don't see movement OR color, and I figure the solar flare on Saturday might mess things up navigationally. Watch sunrise over the older man and hard woman who refuses to let the woman in front of her, next to Dennis, lean back at ALL during the night, so she can keep her legs crossed, and I'm MISERABLE. Then there are clouds, then we fly BETWEEN layers of cloud and I go back to door to view until I'm sore from supporting myself at an awkward angle. VERY tired at lousy breakfast at 6:30, then clearer over France, miss Paris and "Charters," and then over Alps, fabulous through clouds, Mt. Blanc on right, sadly, since we're on the left, but there are lots of peaks and some valleys and spectacular vistas. Down into clouds, the Dolomites quite shrouded, and we land at 2:10, after changing watches a difference of 5 hours, since they go to daylight savings on the last day of May. Off, BREEZE through customs, who turns out to be Jeff surprised and insisting that we get our bags and we say these ARE our bags, and we sit on the bus and chat, waiting a LONG time for tourists to arrive, and finish writing notes at 2:45. Read and sit till 3:05. Ride around on bus with Venice off on the horizon, through a tiny Jesolo and to a hugher Lido, and into hotel at 3:45 (20 minutes ride, eh?) and get room 103 and go out to patio and stare at water and sip wine after we get some small orientation and get told there's a bus in at 5:45. Dennis agrees that if he could sleep for an hour he'd feel like going in, so he gets into bed at 4:20, saying to wake him at 5:15, and I decide to walk to the west to see if I can find the other hotels and maybe leave messages for people trying to get me there. Start notebooks then: TUE: Boats under hotels, metal wrapped in plastic against salt-air destruction, workmen painting stone walls, scraping metal swings, and whitened windows, parking lots with one car---Lido de Jesolo was NOT open for the season yet. Walk to camping area at end of street, and back by second street at 5;15, getting Dennis up and we leave on bus at 5:57, taking 3 minutes at OTHER hotels, quite a distance away, and get to Piazzale Roma at 6:57. Onto #1 vaporetto that leaves at 7:13, and into last stop beyond San Marco at 7:53, LOVELY trip, fabulous chandeliers lit like sets inside most palazzos, tourists in gondolas, 10 minutes of pink clouds from setting sun, but then the dark and the chill of the night, and St. Marks is ankle deep in the waters that lap over the streets and make life miserable for the gondoliers who have to force people to brave the flood to sail with them. People stand alongside and prevent viewing from our seats. We're cold, and off to walk through square, almost empty, and along Mercerie to wander around looking for Graspo de Uva, and a lit sign in the floor is great (and we'd gotten good advice from tourists on the bus who'd been there before), and we talk to MARVELOUS British couple, the Stephens, from Brixham, and to Gute and Bruno from Alto Adige, who doesn't care for us, but Gute tells us that the menu is VERY special, and the bill is 28500 and I leave 3000 and DASH out at 9:25 for mad following of "Ferrovia" and "Piazalle Roma" signs, faster and faster, through narrow alleys and wide echoing empty piazzas and around corners and over bridges and through tunnel-like overhangs and getting to a canal-side dead-end after misinterpreting a curving sign and running past surprised people, then to the canalside to dash past people and hand trucks and over bridges and across ferry dock and up and down stairs to bus area, and JUST get on as they leave at 11, back to hotel at 12, dozing at end with barely-remembered dreams of pleasure, and fall into bed at 12:10, leaving a last-ditch call for the morning at 9 so that we can be ready for the second bus of the day at 10:30.
WALKING VENICE; ST MARKS; ANTIQUO MARTINI
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3. Copy hotel rates: high season ONLY from July 8 to August 20, only 6 weeks and 7 weekends, for "full board"---which MUST be just breakfast, since it's only 1160F ($1.30) above "Rooms," amounting with 9% IVA and 1% sojourn tax to 19,620, about $22, ABOUT same as Brochant for minimal facilities. At least the room is bigger, there's a larger closet, but there's no tub, no shower enclosure at ALL, and only one large bath-towel for the two of us. Hot chocolate is good and we have to ask for butter and jam, and I get awful canned orange juice for "extra" (and it cost 500L) and Dennis wants to ask about breakfast prices here, and has no suggestions when I ask what his breakfast fantasies are, but that he's resigned himself to no breakfasts in Europe, which would be nice if true. Coffee is cold and chocolate HOT for "instant" long preparation. Eat to 10:20 and go off for 10:30 on shuttle bus. Typical tour desk hours at 7-9 or 8-10 am and 5-7 pm, and note that we have to get tickets then, and I'm annoyed and decide we'll get on bus ANYWAY. Some shirtless guests are rather potty, but some of the Italian crotches last night were great, and the SECOND bus driver was handsome, tall, and tight-jeaned. Nazarena and out-going guide was attentive and sweet, and the back-coming Doriana was cooler but efficient. Some of the grand canal palazzos are dreams: canopies and awnings the same pattern and initials, large motor launches anchored outside with sleek new-wood gondolas tied to poles of the same stripes. Vistas of the grand entrance halls turning inside through windows as we pass like hyperanimated vistas, turning through 180 as we pass through 90, seemingly. Chandeliers line the entries, marble stairways and mirrored doors sweep up beyond and above large reading lamps shining inside elegant rooms and some people sitting in high-backed chairs. Above that are bedrooms, some washing hanging out to dry, some gardens hung with trees and bushes, many in heavy bloom, particularly wisteria. Some have bosky gardens next to them, flowering fruit trees and branches sending sprays of color far out over the canal to catch the sun from around corners. Dark alleys stretch out between, some kids are playing in private patios. Walking, dead ends lead to elegant doorways or institutional labels of offices. Lighted windows give off guitar sounds. Walking leads to canals, other alleys, or squares, all with far more dark windows than lit. There's no smell, but there are dark floating shapes just below canal surface, pieces of wood and scraps of paper and floating red plastic bottles, so it may be bad as the heat mounts. Most men in jackets, shops brightly lit and expensive, few fast-food places. I sit and write on steps next AM as 10:30 bus delays to 10:40 and Dennis slouches against a post and lets me write, sort of out of it, it seems. 14 others wait, chatting, complaining, wondering, wanting to see Venice, and we're already experiencing the first vague friction: I ask him questions and he says "What?" or "What do you mean?" and I have to simply repeat questions in other forms. He seems to offer no suggestions of what we do, though I'm sure he'll be quick to complain (or simply refuse), when I suggest something he doesn't want. I carry the maps and the guides and the lists and the money and he saunters unencumbered. We'll have to switch off the responsibilities and then he won't know the exchange rates. It comes at 10:45 and driver says we can get shuttle tickets at the Caravelle. Leave at 10:45. People are STANDING as we leave at 11:03 from Caravelle, and to Piazzale Roma at 11:55 and start walking. Look at shops and markets and find Campo St. Margaret, then, by chance, the Accademia and enter free at 12:30 to 1:45, then rest and eat at "Snack Bar" below Accademia, moving from shade to sun, spending 4100 lire for pizza, 2 ham and cheese, and 1/2 wine. Nice calm and relaxing lunch, and Accademia was rather ill-lit and fusty, nothing REALLY great to see. Wine puts a good light on things. Then at 2:45 walk to Peggy's and find crowd gathering and we walk east looking for a cambio and stumble into a glass shop that goes on and on for room after room of glasses, chandeliers, sculptures, tureens, platters, lamps, and little souvenirs, lights going on before us and off after us. Then to Santa Maria Della Salute for a coy St. Sebastian that would be a VERY academic Titian if in fact it was by him, and huge bare white-domed church. Then back to Peggy's to meet Jean-Claude Perrin and his friend! Down by train for 10 days, tomorrow leaving and we chat. Dennis wants $5 guide but we have no money, so we leave to walk to Accademia Bridge and walk to St. Marks, changing on way. It DOES look different in day, fairly crowded with tourist groups and we go direct to Campanile and take elevator to VERY windy top where the streets are so close that there's no QUALITY of the canals from the top at all, just an island with lots of orange tile roofs and lots of people on the clock tower, which reads VII 25, for example. Cold up top and wait for elevator down with pushy people and down across to St. Marks, where Dennis balks at paying 300L for the Pala d'Oro, studded with---IF emeralds and rubies---a FORTUNE in gems. Out and look at confessionals and dizzying number of mosaics, about 12 pages in the guide, and then to treasury for bones of Peter, Phillip, Basil and a number of others, lots of pieces of Cross, and a piece of bread with the blood of Christ dipped onto it, no less. And a bone of Anne, Mary's mother, known before HE was born that SHE was a saint??? Dennis comes in for the onyxes and book covers and huge cups in the museum. Outside and feeling tired, so try (top is closed, since it's 5:40 by now) a glassmaker but the furnace is closed down already and we go way east to wander TOWN streets, just birds and cats and kids screaming and we try a Locanda Corona to STAY until I hear a kid screaming. To police station at end and alongside to get a #5, and we THINK to go around island but find ourselves bound for the Cemetery---but it's closed so we PASS it and go to Murano, but it's cold and getting dark, so we're back in for 200L to ride across and watch kids in faded jeans pushing their crotches in front of them and kids with perfect asses and tight trousers and lovely faces and aloof eyes. Part of the sensuality of Italy, but frustrating too. Then around back of Venice, lots of factories and fields and broken-down warehouses and people practicing in 2, 3, 4, and 8 for Vogalonga, the gondola race Sunday. Cold and dark, stopping at Giudecca, then at last about 8 pm across to St. Marks, and across square again to get lost, getting back to Pozzi and della Fenice is CLOSED so we go to Antigo Martini for 21,000L chateaubriand that's good quality London broil, and my bresaola is good and lemony and paté is creamy and wine is passable for 6000L. but AGAIN it's a wait for Dennis's crepes a la crème and my mediocre chocolate cake and we leave at 10:20 to get lost and lost and lost and ask, and deadends on canals and I'm saying we CAN'T get to it on time, but at 11:05 we're THERE and the BUS is there. On with enormous relief, complimenting him, and get back at 11:47 after leaving at 11:17, GREAT!
MURANO, ST. MICHAELE, TORCELLO, BURANO, TAVERNO LA FENICE
THURSDAY, MAY 4. Wake at 6:30 for sex to 7:30, bus at 8:35. Dennis asking for lost passport, and at 9:07 we leave Caravelle! Into Ferrovia at 9:50 and we walk away from Rio Nuova until we decide to walk toward it, and then we pass people from the bus as we cross the Ponto di Scalzi and he gets caught up in fish market. We find a place for breakfast about 10:30 and it staggers us with a 7600 bill: 3000 for our omelet---green beans, awful---and his runny eggs and ham, then 2100 for 2 coffees and a hot chocolate, bitter but strong and good, and 1600L for bread and butter! I leave JUST 7600 and we grumble off, having seen LOTS of CUTE guys and crotches and tight jeans and wide-wale corderoys. Then continue to walk, following map, and get into VERY quiet environs, and find boat JUST leaving---I shout "Murano?" and he says OK and we pay 600 for 2. Get off at Cimitiare and have GREAT time inside with Stravinsky and Diagelev and monuments and crosses and new sections and silk-paper flowers and LOADS of real ones and walk and walk and walk: lizards and tombs and urns and people and crosses and religious and military and grand edifices---Della Costa two HUGE purple-tile wedges with revolving windows in facing doors. Out to look at church, closed, piss in smelly place, and out about 12:50 to get a boat quickly to Murano, going past Collona and Faro to Murano Museo and go to museum, archeological below and 17-18 century above, then walk along and find suburbs THERE, too, and then back to a factory making dolphins and lilies and horses with add-ons for mane and tail and ears, then out to SECOND factory to a fabulous-bodied guy in green showing off and pinching his fat friend's tit and laughing and arguing, and they break a pebbled-surface globe that hit bottom in the furnace. Out to the mainer area and to REGULAR factory tour: 1000, gas fuel, curing ovens for 4-5 days, no sexy guys, steel cooling-tops, to shop for "modern" nudes and finally glasses reduced to $10 apiece and he's tired of glasses so we walk to main square along canal and see boat in and DASH. Leave at 3:40, to Mazzorbo at 4:15, onto Torcello at 4:25, out and in and buy 2000L book and to 5:10 boat to "Burano, where we looked for Prugna" as Dennis put it, and I show him leaning tower, which he loves, and it's all VERY neat and Dutch-village clean and brightly colored, and at 6:10 he has his Prugna and I an Orzata for 600L and the 6:10 to Venice leaves at 6:20, turning out to be a BIG two-decker that takes awhile to load, and return via Torcello-Mazzorbo and past islands with ruins (passed rowers earlier and for some reason they steered into back of ship---or did ship slow?---and they holler up in rage. Ship had nudged them toward side-channel markers and slowed and speeded to keep pace with them) and to Fondamente Nuova and Dennis says we should walk. I give him map, he wants to be on "instinct," but there are signs pointing toward St. Marks and the walk's interesting because the streets are jammed with people and students and citizens and tourists, some of whom look at Dennis when he cruises them, and to square and back to La Fenice and it's open, but it's "outside or not at all" and it's cooler because it's not heated with overhead lamps, like Martini. His Tagiolini is pasta-y and tasty with cheese and chicken and ham and noodles, and my Cannoli-Verdi alla Fenice is light and spinach-non-tasting and the Aqua de Venezia is blue, vodka-based, and "secret" and ghastly---I leave it and hope they'll remove it from bill. THEY simply leave it, full, on table. Lots of people outside now, some sexy, and loud Gondolieris in octet blast ears inside. My liver-kidney-sweetbread (SALTY!) dish is VERY small and his shrimp and cuttlefish copious and tasty enough. We'd DETERMINED to leave at 10 and at 9:30 he asks for flaming bananas for dessert and they say flamer is being used inside for 25 minutes, and we wait, my zabaglione cake good, and at 9:55 (after moving table around a number of times) he starts and serves it at 10:05, and it's a bit overcooked and cherry-tasting. Ask for check once, twice, and then I STAND and handsome waiter gives me an "Oh, sorry, sir, I forgot" flick of eye and rushes inside---to return with a dish for someone else. I take Dennis by the arm and say "Let's go," and we go out---waiter says "One minute sir" and I expect him to apologize and follow with check, but turn and see him talking with woman at next table. Dennis said he agreed with what I'd done and was about to make a scene at being treated with such DISDAIN. We get out at 10:15 and get to Accademia promptly and across to recognize first part, ask, follow map, get lost twice, and get to Piazzale Roma at exactly 10:45, onto buys for sexy driver again and take off at 10:55 to 11:30 to phone Franco (someone else answers and says he'll call tomorrow at 8) and Edgardo, no answer. Bed without sex.
TRIESTE FOR DENNIS'S PASSPORT; GROTTA GIGANTICA
FRIDAY, MAY 5. Wake, then decide to look at watch and it's 8:15. Out sort of dizzy and Dennis cleans teeth (he did last night, too) and we dress and I shit---seem to have diarrhea, but no great need to shit often---and I go out to find no one in IW room for bus tickets. Hear hotel woman quoting "We never expect rain in Venice," and look at gray skies outside and decide to put ON pullover and TAKE raincoat in pack. Then Dennis checks for passport: they haven't found it and Embassy for the district is in Trieste, not Florence or Venice. I fuss and the guide says "It's serious, you may not be permitted to leave airport, or may not be permitted back to US," and "be delayed for hours." Then he adds, "Don't say you don't know where you lost it, they might think it's been stolen and it's a whole different matter." SILLY! Then girl says "Come with me to local police station" and Dennis says "I want to handle this now" so I change bus from 8:30 to 10:30---she'd come in and was writing tickets on slips of paper---she'd run out, but at least they get the Venice brochures back in a new supply. So Dennis goes off and I go have chocolate and somewhere get a message that Franco will call back at 9:15---so it's good we've stayed here till then! I eat and get out to wait for the call from Franco, catching stuff up to date in notebook, and then as I catch up, Franco calls at 9:20 and is pleased to hear from me but reluctant to get or give a call at 8 AND is reluctant to meet us in Jesolo tomorrow before calling (he has the same snobby disdain in his voice, saying he's working today, but he'll drive us around and have lunch somewhere tomorrow). He says he's happy to hear from us and looks forward to seeing us tomorrow. Then I have him call Edgardo and he ANSWERS and is DELIGHTED to hear from me, saying he might be coming to NYC THIS summer, he'll tell me about it (he's going to Guatemala for 4 weeks and will spend a week here first, and I might go down with them, then) and he has to have lunch with someone on Sunday but he'll be at his place after 2 pm, and we can go see him there. Dennis has returned with a xeroxed sheet with "Questura di Venezia/Commissariata di P.S. di Jesolo" stamped on top and 1500L Marca de Bollo on top cancelled with Commissariata di PSDJ, typed with Minot, Nurth Dakota (USA) and they have to add the o after nat to care for the ne/nee problem. They have his driver's license number because he never recorded his passport number. Then he signed and there's another big stamp and the commissioner signed it. They say fare to Trieste is about 3000L, there are no cars available from Jesolo (they have 30-40 and they're all out), but they may have some at P. Roma, but they're not about to call---we can ask there. They phone for address of U.S. Consulate in Trieste and we can get train if we take 10:30 bus. At 10 I borrow sheet to copy down information, Dennis goes to room to clean up, and I decide it's time to check room for Azak, whom they've crossed off list, but after checking and fuss, he says he can move in with the single in 101 Saturday. Dennis shaves and I brush teeth and shit again, better this time, soft curds, not liquid, and get to bus (they write Dennis OFFICIAL tickets) at 10:30 and it leaves at 10:35. Goes to Caravelle (brand new-smelling bus with untouched ashtrays) at 10:50 and gets to Venice 11:30, after I storm up to tell them to shut off awful American music interspersed with Italian commercials that either repeat "elegantissimo" and "bellissima" or "nuove, nuove, nuove." She seems surprised, but does it. Clouds clear to tiny patches of sky, then close again and even Dennis says "Do you think it'll rain?" Off and cross two bridges in WHAT MUST BE the long way around, and there's a 1:15 to Trieste and a 12:00 via Udine, which we take, 2 little cars with a tiny no smoking section where we continue to write, Dennis starting back on May 1 but getting to "Graspo" by 11:30. My watch becomes two minutes fast, so I set it back JUST at 12 as pressure escapes from engine and we shake a bit faster, there's a whistle and three or four shouts from the bearded conductor, there's a distant bell chiming noon, it lurches again and we move at 12:01, precise. Via Mestre and other stops at Meolo and he finally finds we change at San Giorgio, and we MAY be there by 2! (in 1963 they closed Venice Consulate, leaving Trieste open). S. Dona di Piave-Jesolo about km 40 at 12:50. 65 km at 1:20 in Fosalta di Portogruardo, so train to Trieste would go there anyway. Latisana bigger place at km 70 at 1:30. Then to San Giorgio at 1:50 and find that next train is at 2:30. I'm starved. Walk to corner, only sandwiches. Walk up block; closed Friday. Walk further up block, "No cucina." Walk more, only sandwiches, no pizza or calzone in pizzeria. Into NEXT albergo and (Melanzone alla parmigiana is eggplant in Trieste) there's a bar and a smoky restaurant. I ask "presto" and he says "subito" and Dennis doesn't believe it so he leaves. I order excellent veal Milanese and salad, and about 2:15 he brings meat and TWO salads and I excuse, saying other left. He explains lengthily to cook and I gulp down food and get out at 2:22, to station at 2:28 in time to sit quietly with Dennis for 2:35 train. This one goes quickly and comes down to mountains at last, a great curve of seaside terminates in Trieste, and we pass Miramare right on coast and fat guy tells us where we are. Off at 3:15 and ask police, who direct us to consulate, and we walk down Parisian street and up to consulate where I read Venice book and he goes for pictures for 4000L and I chat with woman from MONDAY arrival who's staying in hotel WITH friend for $22 APIECE! Five passports lost per day NOW and it'll build, and MAYBE they'll reopen consulate in Venice, closed in 1963, since the consul is Venetian. Out at 5 after asking data on Grotta Gigantica, the ONLY sight open until 7 in the whole town, all else closing at 1 or 2 pm! Out to try a few taxis and get to main drag to find a guy who says 10,000L, where girl at consulate said 5-8000, but it's STILL only $5 apiece for a real excursion, and so we say yes. Ride directly up hill, oohing and aahing over sights of city spread in an amphitheater below. Around to Opcina and there's NO sign at a crucial turnoff, another difficulty of renting a car. Tours at 5:30 and it's 5:15, so we buy folder of photos and glance at small speleological museum and wait with load of kids to see people puffing up at 5:30-5:45. Down to HUGE cavern with cement stairs winding down and down, guide talking about "extinct river" and saying there are many in Italy and Yugoslavia, and we gaze out across an enormous expanse, with plastic tubes hanging down for seismographic research and for measurements of gravities between the earth and the moon, and spotlights all over pick out smallish formations, but it's hard to tell size in this cavern which I believe he said was 144 meters high, which would make it considerably higher than a 50-story building. Even kids are hushed and quiet in the immensity. We labor up at 6:15 to find this was the last tour, and get to cab. Back to town same way and we pay only 10,000L and he thanks us so profusely I'm glad we didn't tip. Dennis is STARVED, since he hadn't eaten, so he lets us off at a Baroque snack bar where Dennis has a pizza diabolo that's peppery and great, and I have eggplant, good, and wine for both is in 1/4 bottles which Dennis loves. To station in rain (and watching and looking back at crotches that look back at us) and find next train is at 8:30, getting in at 10:42! Across to ice cream place to see an Italian bag lady shouting, and have good sauces on good-textured cream, and we get on train to see a white-shirted and white-panted fellow who smokes in a way that reminds me of Azak, so despite the fact that he's sharing a compartment with a woman, I tell Dennis that he's gay, so he lures him down to end of hall, but NOT into bathroom, and they touch, disturbed, guy returns to window, then returns to Dennis, Dennis touches his cock, which gets hard, but he won't speak. Then back to window and Dennis to compartment, and he offers us Coke, then comes and tries to talk, getting ages and addresses, and Dennis keeps touching him and he withdraws but keeps coming back for more, and he's visiting his sick mother in Barleta, near Bari, having to travel all three days from Trieste, where he's a nurse, and he'd love to get to NYC but doesn't have the money. Dennis says he thrusts in his tongue nicely at the farewell kiss, and we're pleased with the encounter with Giuseppe Cartone. To Venice at 10:42 and dash to Roma and bus leaves JUST as we arrive at 10:50, and have a drink at the bar, Williams Psammona, or something, and bed without sex, tired.
FRANCO; HARRY'S BAR; DOGE'S PALACE; TRATORIA MADONNA
SATURDAY, MAY 6. Up to shower at 9;15 and of course Franco calls THEN. He needs to work to 1:30, so we just get breakfast at 9:55 and leave note for Azak in 101 and get to bus at 10:30 to find there are just three for the bus, so we go by car to La Caravelle. Dennis told Jeff (apologizing for me) that I was a grouch, so I sit on his seat as he insisted and we talked about his life: moving out of his apartment in Boston in 4 days when he was offered the overseas work that he wanted, only woman with pinched nerve and Dennis his problems, not been into Venice yet, so this is his first time, likes it so far, plans for Copenhagen for the summer and Rome/Athens in the fall, and says ONA planes will just be sold and used again. To P. Roma and take #1 to Rialto to Post Office (after exploring bridge and shopping streets) to find no letters from Edward and buy all stamps for 14,880L. Out and follow signs to aquarium, but we take more time and I have to cash money and get lousy rate on Saturday from Cooks. Meet Franco at 1:35: I'd even spotted his perky insolence, and he takes us to Harry's Bar, which we'd been remarking that we hadn't seen and even asked DIRECTIONS to this morning. Incredible coincidence, since we'd asked. GREAT meal he pays for until 4 (I have best liver ever, with onions and polenta; Dennis liked his steak, my Doge's cup was interesting but not repeatable, and his mimosa (champagne with orange juice instead of the peach with champagne that makes a Bellini) was not very good, and the zabaglione tort was nice and strawberries were nice), we arrange for 7 pm call, and we're to Doge's palace for HUGE dark rooms with most enormous fireplaces and paintings and scrollwork all but invisible in the rain, and to the prisons and look out from the Bridge of Sighs, smelling of bats, with lots of tourist groups shouting at tourists (and forgot the incredible multilingual announcements constantly blaring in St. Marks that we must be quiet since this is a church used for worship!). Out at 5:30 and to aquarium, which is much like others, rather stuffy, lazy turtle in open tank, lots of colorful fish, drab tanks for the "lagoon of Venice" series, and he falls in love with the Red Sea fish of the Caribbean. At 6:10 to Florians for Vino Brule and Punch, BOTH hot and good, for 4200L, since it's 600L extra when the band plays, which it does constantly. Best place on the square, as we find out later by comparing Lavena. There's not a CLAP of thunder but a gradual buildup of a RUMBLE that I guess indicates lots of echoes and the rain pelts down and it's chilly, but the gray-green sky is dramatic and portentous. At 7 I go upstairs and put 150L in a "gitone" box and it doesn't work. Downstairs with woman who explains my plight and says "They won't listen," and guy says "Scrito chiuso" and I shout "NON scrito" and smack 50L down for a gittone, wait for him to turn before hurling back "Buffone!" wait for girl to finish calling, then deliberately, maliciously, write "This does not work, not working" all over the machine, then phone and ask "Messagio de Franco Sernagiotto por Robert Zolnerzak and he says "No." Ooops, wrong coding (this is written stopped in Padua at 11:15 Sunday), but he seems to say the MESSAGE was "No." Back to Dennis and it's stopped raining and the top of St. Marks glows gold on the mosaics as the sun comes out as it sets. Pay and walk more, to still-new section of town, and he suggests, since we're not starved, the Trattoria Mona, or whatever, off the Rialto. There, nice walk to Rialto we'd walked in the AM with lots of stalls and shops and people, and see yellow Trattoria Madonna sign, and walk down to find it jammed and pleasant. Italians to my left give all kinds of advice: cheese for soup, vegetables, but not for the spaghetti and clam sauce. Stick fork into spaghetti and twirl, and there's a confusion with wine, but we end with carafe of white and get to keep the English menus, as Franco had asked for menus from Harry's Bar, so we take these too. Bag getting loaded. Then the "ragazzi" to my left leave and a great blond open brush-mustached guy sits down and we both like him and think his older-woman psychiatrist companion jealous. I say they can keep menus and we start talking and out come my medical indexes, Dennis's collecting work, her idea that the mind-expanding things like est produce a few casualties but in general the field takes more note of pharmaceutical advances than mysticism. Peter Burgess says he'll send me a page from Nolan's Pathology "Birds, for the, I-2102" and gets my address. He has a house and farm out of Berkeley and seems just a SUPER radiologist. Talk of film and Venice and places to go and we leave at 10;10, and stroll slowly through pleasant streets and squares, waves lapping over embankment, and then have to go faster and faster and get to P. Roma JUST as a bus is pulling out at 10:49. Sit in Doriana's seat as she flirts with cute driver and I feel VERY good and we're back at 11:30 to find Azak NOT in yet, and we have Cherry Kirberry and he a Pernod and buy an Amaretto for Jeff and we get to bed with VERY hard cocks and play and come LOTS in jig time at about 1 am, feeling great and sleepy, hardly any lightwork.
MILAN:LAST SUPPER; EDGARDO:MANTOVA/IL CIGNO/VECCHIA ROMA
SUNDAY, MAY 7. Bus leaves Caravelle at 8:55, after phone buzzed at 7:15 and Dennis gets into shower and goes to breakfast first, and I join him for last bit and brush teeth before bus leaves at 8:40, and gets into town at 9:40, with incredible Jewish lady talking of shopping and synagogues and ghettos and prices and lovely kosher food. Loud voice, commanding heat and wind on and off, leaning up against seat and how could ANYONE live WITH her? Find that train to Milan leaves at 10:35, so out for Dennis's coffee and watch crotches, and get seat on train and I buy bottle of "vino frizzante" for 900L, good, and we leave on time, stream of crotches from arriving trains going by. To Padova and Vicenza and Verona, cute people on train, filling up, and Lago de Guarda at 12:50, same Clinica Eliopathica on hill. Into Brescia at 1, getting to be sort of a bore, and Dennis is starving and I'm hungry too: and we'll have to eat before meeting Edgardo since he had to stay in Milan for lunch. Snuffling as if from some sort of allergy, and rocky hills north of Brescia break up the essentially plane countryside, though there have been a few wide views and some hills with tall firs and villas and churches and palazzos. Via Chiau and Treviglio and Canau d'Adde. Wagon comes with a ham and a cheese sandwich for lunch and one bottle of wine and raisin cake, and we get in just after 2 to Lambrate. I get off to ask a porter if this is the station for Via dei Mille and he rushes us down a corridor and points to a tram, saying "Ask the conductor" in Italian. I thank him and we go over to place and conductor says OK and we ride and don't pay and get off to walk three blocks from 67 to 10 and ring for Edgardo. He buzzes us up and immediately offers us something to eat, which Dennis accepts, so he starts boiling ravioli and goes off to phone people in Mantova and Verona to see what to do. Wine is nice and fizzy, and he says it's like grass, and Dennis grinningly agrees. Down to car and roar through streets to get to the Cenacle Refectory for DaVinci's "Last Supper," but they insist that it's closed. Edgardo asks about the busload of tourists coming over, and they say they'd phoned from Rome for permission. Edgardo says "Join them," and I ask guide and we DO. Smiles! In to bare room and crumbling painting, and it IS in tempera, and close up the modeling is fine, far back the whole thing looks good, but in the middle it's a mass of fades and cracks. Buy cards, look at better-preserved real-fresco on facing wall, and get to car at 5 to lose way to Mantova a few times, Dennis tired enough to sleep in back of car, and we talk and talk until 7 when we arrive, winding way into the center of the conch-streets to park in the main square and look at the closed Doge's palace, into the Gonzaga park, walk into inner courts, then to other squares via the cathedral, greeted by three HEFTY prostitutes leaving, and then Dennis is hungry so we ask directions to a good restaurant and we get to Il Cigno, beautiful country-style place, and Edgardo insists on ordering, so it's Mortadella, sort of bologna and fat, prosciutto, salami, and fabulous coppa, dried beef, then fagiola and bignoli, which he says is hollow pasta noodles, and I'm so full that I insist on salad and they have dessert. The marinated vegetables have perfect crunch, the lemon is great on the beets and beans and spinach, the lemon-sugar sauce on the strawberries is great, and we have wine and mineral water and they have coffee and I order tea, and the waiter is funny but snotty and efficient, and we stare at people and then we're out, absolutely stuffed, for only 18,00L for a fabulous meal. To john and look at maps and he asks for hotels, and we travel and go round and round and he finds Roma Veccia for only 4800L for BOTH for night, and I'm up to room to say it's fine, and he tries calling his friend (whom he says is leaving town tomorrow and is supposed to stay at his place tonight, which is a pity because I thought we'd have sex) but can't get in, so he has to return, so we say goodbye and thanks, get into clammy room and undress and I look at the super book on Mantova art that I bought, and I wash face and get into comfortable bed, sensing that Dennis wants sex (from the sound of his hand moving under the blankets) but I'm exhausted from talking to Edgardo at his pace and from all the food, and we drift off to sleep, not even bothered by the coughing of the man downstairs, and I get through rather more lightwork than I usually do, but still not finishing a session.
MANTOVA/VERONA/VENICE: CORRER, GUGGENHEIM, LAVENA, RAFAELLE
MONDAY, MAY 8. Up at 9, feeling just great, pleased with a sunny day outside, and get out to walk by instinct to the round church we'd seen earlier, look at that from 9:25-9:30, and Dennis says he loves its simplicity and cozy brickwork, and then to the Pallazo Ragione for the 30th Anniversary of Fascism from 9:30-9:35, mainly looking at the huge salon it's displayed in, and look at markets, finding fennel or finnochio that we so liked in the salad last night, and find that the Palazzo Ducale is in fact closed on Monday, and start looking for breakfast: disaster. I don't want place in town, since it's musty inside, look for other and it's either construction across the street or only serving lunch. Walk here and there, increasingly frustrated, and tell Dennis that he'll have to lose me from 8-10 while he gets ready and has breakfast and I see three museums. Into a modern church with scraps of old ones bricked into the walls, and finally find a place where he can get coffee and a sandwich, at 10:30, and I'm VERY depressed and decide that I'm NOT going to ruin Verona the same way, so we're leaving now and getting to see the Archeological, the Correr, and the Rezonnico in Venice, and he can get to Peggy's, and I'll feel better. Into street and turn to find where to go and THERE, one block away, is a railway car at the end of a street. To that, ask, and we're .5 km from the station: luck! It's just before noon and I see the trains for Verona are 11:40 and 1:15, so I go to ask for tickets to Verona, he asks "Adesso?" I say "Adesso" and he says "Binario Una" and we're out onto track to get the LATE train for Verona! On and congratulate ourselves, looking at city passing, feeling increasingly allergic, sneezing in sunlight, and get into Verona without having to pay for a ticket at 12:30, and get into station to guy two tickets to Venice on the 12:57 express, and suddenly things look good again. Then there's a 10-minute delay in the train, they only have one packed dinner (expensive for 2500L, but the paté is interesting, the bread sticks crisp, the peach juice good, and the cheese passable) so we get sandwiches and more wine and sit in the corridor until people clear out halfway there, and trip goes smoothly, talking with people in compartment, getting there at 2:30, taking express down the Ria Nuovo, which is VERY slow, and getting off at St. Marco to see the tiny park for the first time, which might be cruisy, and the drove of souvenir stands right there, and I'm glad we bypassed it before. Archeological is closed, around to Correr and it's immense and rather boring, though some nice Bellinis and Dutch school, interesting old Venetian things, Doge's caps and models of Bucentor and gowns and glassware and coins, then out at 3:35 to make a mad dash for the Ca' Rezonnico, and Dennis doesn't want to go, but I say it's just "over there" and get there at 3:45 to find they won't let us in: people leaving, ignoring the sign that they're "Open till 4" and I holler and she hollers and Dennis later says "Though you didn't understand each other, you didn't have any problems arguing." Glumly back to Guggenheim's at 4, he buys 5000L book, I recall most of her stuff is junk, including a room of Pegeen's, her daughter's, but the reflecting spheres are fabulous and it seems that gigolos prowl the halls. I sit at the end and ask how to phone long-distance, and we're out to piss in the pissoir under the bridge, convenient, and I try to find if Franco left a message and they just read three sheets from Azak and "she writes very bad." Decide that Franco left no message after getting VERY frustrated, and then take the boat across to St. Marco again and it's raining again as we sit in Lavena and pay 6000L for rather poor punch and amaretto and pernod, and who walks up but AZAK! Some cruising seems to be going on, nice crotches, and we wait until 7 and walk to Rafaelle, where Azak decides he IS hungry, and he and the waiter lock horns and we have not-so-good pasta e fagiole, he likes his goldfish, I can't have liver so I have veal Bolognese which is cheesy and tomato-y and not very good veal, and the spaghetti isn't bad, but not special, and dessert cakes are not great, and Azak pays with American Express and we three gambol through the streets to the bus, he enjoying our tales of Venice, and get there just at 10:45 to sit until 11:05 on most deluxe bus, lots of room, and I look at the view as they sit together and don't talk, and we tumble into bed exhausted after going to Azak's room to look at his two bowls, smoke grass, and I get so uncomfortable and tired that I leave at 12:50 and Dennis follows at 1 as I'm washing, no trouble sleeping.
VENICE TO NYC
TUESDAY, MAY 9. Wake about 8 and shower and Dennis packs and we get to a full breakfast, ham omelet greasy but tasty without salt, and Azak joins us at 10:30, saying the breakfast he'd ordered in his room hadn't arrived YET. Pay the desk bill for the telephone calls and juice the first day, then go out for a stroll on the beach, still rather gray, and Dennis is annoyed at me and I'm fretting about wasted time and NOT REALLY about the flight. Out of the room at 11, happy that everything more than fits into the two TDI bags, and sit writing very few notes, reading, and leave hotel at 11:37 to get to airport at 12:15 with EVERYONE on line ahead of us to check in their tickets. Then she announced we CAN sit, and we sit inside the door on some of the few chairs there. Azak wants one last pasta dish, but it's far to the restaurant and Jeff said plane is still due to take off at 2, so we go to counter and have ham and "Russian salad" sandwiches, decent enough if you're hungry, and each has a little bottle of wine, then a second one, and things begin to look better. Leave our bags with Jackie and Elena (?), who turn out to own a lumberyard in Brooklyn and a jewelry-making firm that sells to Screw and After Dark, who are gay but not lovers. Then at 1:45 there's an announcement that the plane is delayed until 5, and there's a free snack in the departure lounge, so we're over there for another sandwich and a beer and then Azak buys another small bottle of wine for everyone, and we're talking about how things are in the other section when the Stephenses come past, and we welcome them to our side, he buys a two-liter white for all of us, with REAL glasses, and we chat about the trip, he mentions the INCREDIBLE place of Kleber-Post in Solgau, near Ulm, near Munich, and then the duty-free shop opens and Azak recommends the Remy Martin VSOP, as much for the soft bottle as anything else, and buy a Maraschino for 1500 for Dennis with his boarding pass and passport, and talking and drinking makes the time pass fast without a thought of the flight, and we board at 5, getting on about last, and take off at 5:35, hearing with regret that it's an 8 hour 25 minute flight, which means we'll get in about 9. Talk with the couple about THEIR bargain from IW itself, for only $225, and look out over Alps again, this time with Mt. Blanc on OUR side, and clouds close in and he asks her if she wants to sit by the window, and when she refuses I say "I can't lose anything, so may I ask..." and he says "Want to sit at the window?" and I jump at it. Clouds permit Polaroid-streaks from rivers in southern France, and then they clear for fields and farmland, clear for the Channel, then lots of tiny creeks and forests and towns in southern England, and then the bends and bridges of the Thames proclaim that London, from way up, is VERY spread out and undistinguished. About this time we're having dinner, chicken isn't bad, potatoes and carrots nice and hot, and I'm looking down over Isle of Man and Ireland, mostly hills and greenery, and then the last land passes and clouds close in and again I'm fascinated by the eternally long sunset, getting crick in back from bending to the side so much, and time passes and passes and I go to the john and read a bit, and then get idea for songs, and write 12 of them quickly in the back of my book (see DIARY 2981), and then we're over swirls of pack ice with icebergs interspersed that I get out binoculars to look at, off the coast of Labrador, and they're yellow-gray with jet-exhaust, I guess. Few small huts, then clouds close in over snowy-peaks of Newfoundland, and there are a few openings, but there's only clouds and the news that there's a delay at Kennedy because of a thunderstorm, and as it gets dark and starts bouncing a bit, and they serve a snack and I have THREE drinks: mine, Dennis's, and my refill, then drink the wine, and it gets blue-dark and I can see lightning flashing from the clouds, and we're "into to conga line" at 9, lower and lower, pivoting around cloudy arrows in ground, and at last we lower decisively, just as they announce the liner that killed 3 by landing in the water at Pensacola, and lights flicker and then go out in the cabin and we land about 9:30, as Dennis put it, "psychologically exhausted," and we dash out of plane and through customs after Azak, and I'm so tired I want only to catch taxi, so we do, starting at $17 but going Atlantic Avenue and paying $12.50 with tip on $10.95 bill, and get into bed at 11 and permit Dennis to smoke, which lets him get into his cock, and I get into mine and we BOTH shoot quite a lot, getting to sleep about 12, quite exhausted at 5 am!! But, in summary, it was not QUITE as good a trip as Paris. See DIARY 2982)
VENICE TRIP SUMMARY
I was certainly the ugly American: walking out of Taverna La Fenice, shouting at the caretaker at Ca'Rezonicca, not tipping the helpful porter in Milano and not paying for the tram ride, not paying for the train from Mantova to Verona, getting angry at the desk-clerk when he couldn't read Azak's writing, taking Doriana's and Jeff's seat on the bus, not tipping the barman at the airport, taking a few free vaporetti rides on the canals, and probably others. But it didn't seem as if we DID much: took 7 days to see Paris almost completely and we didn't see most of Venice in 5 days. Wanders through the markets and piazzas may have pleased Dennis, but they didn't please me. And the thought of spending over an hour getting to Venice and over an hour (counting the dash for the bus) getting back, plus the price of $3, is just a bit too much, especially seeing that we stayed for a whole NIGHT in Mantova cheaper than the 5200L for the bus into Venice, not to MENTION the time. Then the breakfast-ruined morning in Mantova didn't help, the strange delay in getting to Franco and Edgardo, and then the frustration of finding that Edgardo WANTED to come to Venice to meet us, but somehow I just said we were coming to Milano and he merely accepted it. The "outdoor" dining was so chilly in Venice that we should have tried to find places like the Trattoria Madonna even quicker, or at least ended up in Harry's Bar more often. And why even TRY Lavena when Florian's turned out to be so perfect? Of course the gray-green weather had a lot to do with our displeasure: I NEVER wore my thinner pants or shirts when we were there, though it was a kick to see how awful it might be getting around when the St. Mark's Square is flooded---all the OTHER walks would be underwater, too, and walking on the crates doesn't seem like too much fun: we'd be essentially stranded. Pity I never took the books along when I needed them, or didn't rent a car to be more independent of the bus to the hotel. But next time it'll be easier to do these things, I hope, and it DID turn out to be a very INEXPENSIVE trip, spending only $450 of the $1000 in Traveler's checks I got, giving Dennis the impression that a cheap week (and $500 is FAIRLY cheap for a week in Europe) was possible, and therefore DESIRABLE, at least more often than it had been for him in the past---after all, Paris was OCTOBER!