ROAMING ROME



My first vacation since last 2006 Christmas break in Rye, Rome was beckoning as part of an Italian tripod with its three legs (of different destinations). This may even turn into a four-legged table support as the only Italian holiday spot left of interest could be… Venice. Four years ago, Antoinette (or AA) and I flew for an extended November weekend to Naples, the town of Benevento nearby harboring her family’s origin. Besides discovering the best pizza on a global basis, we were also able to visit Pompei by train while journeying along the coast by the long dormant volcano Vesuvius. Our second leg lead us to Pisa (in November of 2005) and the surrounding Tuscany region (Florence, Siena and the flourishing wine country… but that can be read elsewhere in the blog).

This would be AA’s third trip to Rome as she has local friends in the area, in particular a couple Domenico and Barbara (five months pregnant) living in the nearby suburbs. AA knew Barbara from her years in London while working for Goldman Sachs. To make it more the merrier, another friend of the girls Tita Rebello (of half Portuguese, half Indian origin and still living in London) made the effort and joined the merry band while staying with the couple and she joined us on several of our excursions.

Having Ascension Day as a holiday on Thursday May 17th and the following Friday being an imposed vacation day as part of the infamous French RTT program, I even took an extra day on Monday in order to avoid the very expensive weekend plane tickets. When these were purchased, a fortunate event occurred : Air France was actually cheaper than the low cost Easyjet prices, this latter airline having been the means of travel for the first two trips (plus our Berlin/Wolfsburg escapade). Having gained only a few euros, we were able to get the mileage and the assurance of a quality airline… oops, let me take that back… at CDG Airport when we arrived on that Wednesday night, we learned that we would be taking Alitalia, the junior partner (once, almost in bankruptcy) of the already smallish alliance Sky Team. True to its reputation (the acronym Always Late In Takeoff Always Late in Arrival), we left one half hour late (originally a 21:15 flight), had the worst sandwich ever as a snack (should have been dinner, no ? ), the sourest glass of white wine (Italian), hard cardboard-like seats, and a horrid deep-green trimming inside the plane which seemed more fitting for the Irish. We were lucky as Barbara had graciously offered one of her company’s drivers (she works for Peroni, the king of Italian beers… and they were bought out a few years ago by SAB Miller of South Africa) to pick us up at the Fiumicino (or Leonardo da Vinci) Aeroporto and drive us into the heart of Rome about 40 km away. Of course we arrived late, waited for the luggage on the same carrousel with two other arriving planes which had already arrived. To our surprise, as the rubber plates started to revolve, our plane’s luggage were the first to come out… and our suitcases were among the first ten bags… how fortuitous… as we were already feeling bad for our driver and the midnight hour. He was there on cue and he drove us (accompanied by a gorgeous woman whom we were guessing as his girlfriend… who was a peridontist !! )

We arrived at our destination about 35 minutes later… being Hotel Art, just a three minute walk from the heralded Piazza di Spagna (or the Spanish Plaza with its adjacent Steps) in the northern part of central Rome. This very recent yet very chic hotel seemed to be hidden in a side road (via Margutta, one of Rome’s most picturesque streets and where Federico Fellini, the reputed movie director, lived while in Rome)… with only four floors of rooms (46 in all) with each floor having its own vivid green, yellow, red or blue hallways and room trimmings. A ten minute stroll would take you to several major sites in Rome as well as a two minute walk to the designer shops (Bulgari, Chanel, Valentino, Gucci, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Armani, etc). The hotel concierge, believing that we were big spenders, mentioned this hypothesis in a rather flippant manner and said that these shops were “the most dangerous place for a woman with a credit card”… funny, funny… we never stepped into one. We only used the hotel for sleeping and breakfast, the eating area juxtaposing the reception area which was quite incongruous. The reception desk was actually two oversized dinosaur eggs having a portion cut out for communication purposes. The lobby (including the breakfast lounge) had a vaulted fresco ceiling overlooking a marble altar (the “Crystal Bar”) and had cathedral-like stained glass windows (they seemed to have renovated a 19th century chapel). How…arty… The “state-of-the-art” facilities included an Internet access in each room which did not allow accessing and manipulating your e-mail accounts… plus they charged five euros per day… in this already “luxury” hotel. So AA (who needs constant e-mail access for her work) had a run-in with top management the first morning… they offered her use of the business center for some outlandish fee per minute… and when that was politely refused, they told us of a large Web center fifteen minutes away by foot… which we discovered later on to be closed due to renovation !!! Clearly these blokes were just not up to par… so we discovered a much cheaper access site about a two minute walk from the hotel.

On the first day we wandered by foot the surrounding area realizing that afternoon we would be having a more profound tour with our guide Roberto Carbone. The Spanish Plaza has the Barcaccia (or Old Boat) Fountain (built in 1627/29… Pope Urban VIII had the fountain installed after he had been impressed by a boat marooned on the site after a flood of the Tiber River about one mile away). The Spanish Steps (or Scalinata) climb up a steep slope to the Trinita dei Monti, a church that was under the patronage of the French Bourbon kings. The Steps are known to be the longest and widest staircase in all Europe. Hmmm… I guess that the Italians have not visited the steps dropping down from Montmartre (the Sacré Coeur church) in Paris. Americans can discover the Steps (in Rome) without even leaving the US as supposedly there is a replica located at the base of the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles !! There were always crowds either sitting on the steps under the drilling sun (an atrocious 93° F or 34° C were experienced both on Sunday and Monday) or just hanging around the piazza. With the heat, I am surprised that no one jumped into the “boat” but maybe that is why there were always the local “carabinieri” or the Italian police lolling nearby.

One of AA’s missions on the trip was to dress me up Italian-style as she believes that the Italians are at the tiptop of fashion. We bumped into a local boutique (far from the designer shops) where business dress shirts were marked down 70%, still above what I would pay for at the local Sy Syms in NY but several with white collars (especially those butterfly wing Italian types) that I had been searching for years… and finally found. On our last day, I went back to the boutique and splurged on several. Actually… dress shirts, a few ties, several leisure shirts, a pair of pants, and two pairs of slick Sisley blue jeans as well as a pair of funky shoes were purchased on the trip. Hmmm… going to Rome to buy clothes… now that is a thought. While touring on foot in central Rome (cars are not allowed in most areas), it is amazing to see that it is like a labyrinth and has no planning like Haussmanian Paris or the checkerboard of NYC. It would seem tough to walk around there after midnight in several parts of the city… even though we never felt at risk… despite AA warning me on how professionally these crafty characters could pick pockets.

After some quick pasta at a local eatery, we walked back to the hotel and met Roberto, our guide for the afternoon. He is half-Italian and half-Ethiopian making him almost as dark as our darling sidekick Tita. She showed up twenty minutes late at the hotel… and told AA later that upon first sight, she could not guess which one was… me !! We walked north to the Piazza del Popolo which would be a mini-version of the Place de la Concorde in Paris but with almost no vehicles and a much shorter column in the middle. I started taking pictures with a digital camera which Christel very kindly allowed me to borrow… and eventually snapped about 70 which I will try and post them on the Net... according to Roberto, 70% of the world’s cultural heritage is in Italy of which one third happens to be in Rome.

Then we walked south near the Tiber River (or the Fiume Tivere) and passed by Emperor Augusto’s Mausoleum, some nasty black round cement mound placed where the Roman centurions marched and battled for practice while preparing their conquests of Gaul and the rest of the world. The Tiber seemed at extremely low levels and there were even marsh smells emanating at certain bends as we saw reeds, algae and marsh grass in several areas. As we guessed (and confirmed by Roberto), little rain and global warming was the culprit (swimming had been banned since 1980). We strolled on to more piazzas, before arriving at the marvelous and outrageous Fontana di Trevi where the rococo rearing horses, conch-blowing tritons, craggy rocks and flimsy trees erupt from under the powerful torrents of water belching out from beneath the wall of the Palazzo Poli. It is tradition to throw a coin over your left shoulder with your right arm in order to ensure your return to the Eternal City but I did it to bring me luck… which I needed back in Paris (with the US portfolio at work). Tita and I quickly squirmed through the crowd to heed the call of tradition. Every Monday morning, the fountain is shut off and a cleaning crew is sent in to collect the small change which is given to the Red Cross. We eventually stopped off at an ice cream store for a gelato (with mounds of about one hundred different flavors and colors), our only one on the trip !! Treading further south to the Pantheon (not as impressive as I would have thought) and then on to Piazza Navona (with its grand Fountain of the Four Rivers unfortunately without any bubbly and hidden for the most part behind restorative scaffolding… like many other monuments an buildings in Rome), one of the larger ones in the city. The Pantheon (Greek for “Temple of all the Gods”) happens to be the best preserved of all Roman buildings built back in 125 AD after the original Pantheon of Agrippa had been destroyed in a huge fire in 80 AD. The façade looks just like the Church of the Madeleine in Paris (without the steps) and then has the dome shape unlike the weighty rectangle of the Parisian lieu of worship (the Pantheon is also used as a Christian church). The vaulted dome (the largest un-reinforced concrete dome in the world) was to represent the heavens and smack at the apex you find the oculus (called The Great Eye), a large open-air hole allowing the rain to pour in (little slits on the floor for draining). The Pantheon also acts as a tomb with a few kings and you can see the coffin behind a glass partition of the painter Raphael.

We also saw our share of Palazzos (Montecitorio, Madama, Venezia, etc). We left Roberto and returned to the hotel. Later that night, AA, Tita and I took the metro (more on that type of transportation later) several stops and joined Domenico and Barbara for our first encounter of the trip in a tavern where we had delicious pasta and shared oxtail, with some aromatic Italian vino. While walking to the tavern, the streets were absolutely crazy with AS Roma fans blaring car horns and waving large team pennants from the car windows. They were in some European league play and despite losing 2 to 1, they still advanced in the tournament due to a better goal average over two games… only in Europe can you find joy in losing…

After breakfast on Friday, AA had to make a bee-line for the Internet center while I went on a two-hour stroll much further to the south of Rome… leading me to the excavations of the forums of ancient Rome. Now finally I could see the vast areas of what I had seen in the French comic books of Alix and Asterix. My final destination point was the Coliseum (or Colosseo), most likely the high point of the trip as it was definitely the most impressive… I was just imagining the Romans having their “bread and circus”, the philosophies of the different Roman emperors in order for the locals (45/50 000 seats) to be happy watching the gladiators hacking away or for other public spectacles (mock sea battles, animal hunts, executions, dramas based on local mythology, etc). The lines inside for the visit seemed quite long for this amphitheater built in 70/72 AD under the Emperor Vespasian. Even after Rome “fell” in 476, the Coliseum (all of 615 feet long, 510 feet wide and 157 feet high) was still being used until late in the 6th century. The only other time I had seen the structure was during the movie called The Core when electromagnetic (?) waves rocked the coliseum. The present day damage, only partially due to erosion, to the monument was mostly caused by earthquakes and stone-robbers !!! Having been built at what was historically considered as the city’s center, it is still considered as the “heart of Rome”. Did anyone know that the arena’s floor was actually made of wood and then covered with sand (‘harena’ in Latin) ? Maybe that is why in the movie Gladiator, that trap door sprung open… as the gladiators and animals were living in cages beneath the arena.

I had to hurry back as I had to back at a noon rendez-vous at the hotel. Tita joined us then we all walked across the Tiber, passed in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo, a monstrosity of a castle built as a mausoleum for the Emperor Hadrian (mentioned later in this novella) before venturing on the Via della Conciliazione and finally arriving in front of Basilica San Pietro, or the first bastion of the Vatican. We had a 2 PM meeting with our second guide Anna who was absolutely delightful. As we had to walk around the Vatican walls we fell upon the line which extended for over a two hour wait just to get to the Musei Vaticani (notice the plural). Barbara was to join us also which helped us on a ploy to get in by cutting in line. The Italian guides have strategies for hopping in front of the masses as they help each other out but you can’t be more than two or three people. I was able to “sneak” in with Anna and Barbara as she was pregnant and I was her companion, and a museum official allowed us in by removing the “velvet rope”. AA and Tita used another ruse to get in near the head of the line with a much larger guided group. We were all in quite quickly and then we were given the tour by highly qualified Anna (much better than Roberto). The museums with their 54 galleries display works from the extensive collection of the Roman Catholic Church. There were unending corridors (some as ornate as Versailles but not as wide) many of which were closed to public access (the Pope lived and worked in another building in Vatican City). We were not able to see the famous and impressive circular staircase, having been seen in possible only two Hollywood movies, including Godfather III and the smash dud Hudson Hawk (uhh… with Bruce Willis). For those of you who know that we have had dinner over one year ago with movie director Ron Howard (ex-Richie Cunningham of Happy Days fame) and his wife as the movie The DaVinci Code was being released in Paris, we also knew that within the next month, he was planning to direct in Rome the movie Angels & Demons also based on another Dan Brown novel. I have read both and preferred by far A&D due to its more exciting baseline plot, tons more action (some totally outrageous) and some real slimy villains. We were just wondering how Ron and his team would get around the fact that the Vatican would most likely not permit filming in its City (according to our guides) due to the blasphemous connotations in the novel.

Of course the highlight was the Sistine Chapel, another short cut just in time with Anna’s help was necessary. The Sistine Chapel, one of Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoed masterpieces (painted between 1508 and 1512) was ominous in its darkened interior (no sunlight to spoil the frescoes). Part of its fame also arises from its architecture evoking Solomon’s Temple… and also used as a conclave for electing the Popes (when they send out either the white or black smoke according to their decision-making). In one of his more impressive frescoes (of The Last Judgment), there is a body in the hands of Saint Bartholomew, sagging in the form of flayed skin, supposedly a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself. As an aside anecdote, some quack student from Northwestern University (in the US) back in 1998 was inspired after seeing the ceiling and replicated a portion of it on his dorm room’s ceiling !! Several museum officials quietly shuffled people around as no speaking or picture taking was allowed… but you know the masses or ploucs or whatever… some daring souls tried to take pix and were only scolded from far away… every minute, an official had to cry out “silencio !” as the crescendo of voices had to be quelled with the garbled volume growing sixty seconds later… an occasional “no foto” also had to be uttered… we stayed there either seated or standing for about 15 minutes just gazing at the ceiling… before joining Anna at the exit. We then entered (for free) Saint Peter’s Basilica, the most prominent building in Vatican City (and some say the largest church in Christianity covering 5,7 acres with a capacity of over 60 000 people), once again filled with tourists… and having Michelangelo’s Pietà, a sculpture unfortunately behind glass as some tortured soul took an axe to it back in 1972. The most intriguing sculpture was a marble and gold sculpture of a skeleton protruding from under folds of red marble drapery with an hourglass in his hands looking up at Pope Alexander VII and mocking him, the timepiece symbolizing the inevitability of death.

After saying goodbye to our guide and Barbara, we returned to the hotel with Tita to nibble on Italian ham and cheese while lying on the bed and splashing that down with a bottle of wine. Later we walked back to the Plazza de Navorro (25 minutes away) to have dinner with Domenico and Barbara at a restaurant called La Carbonara, with its very dynamic and witty waiter (even though I had no idea what he was saying).

On Saturday, Tita eventually joined us and we walked across the Tiber River to stroll along the Champs Elysees of Rome but on a much smaller scale. From an avenue leaving the Piazza del Popolo, it branches towards the Vatican on a street called Via Coli di Rienzo where all the boutiques (non-designer) allowing us to browse and make a few purchases (even AA with a Coccinelle handbag). AA very nicely bought dress shirts for me at a shop nearer to our hotel thanks to a recommendation from Domenico. I bought two Italian ties in yet another shop just by being attracted to them in the “vitrine”. In the afternoon, as AA was on Internet, I tried out the hotel’s fitness center in the cellar where they had a stationary bicycle, a stepper and a running machine… I got so bored after twenty minutes (I was alone) that I stopped after trying all the machines.

Later that day, we took the metro at the nearby stop Spagna (under the Spanish Steps) and thirty minutes later on the next to last stop on the B line, we were to have dinner at Domenico and Barbara’s apartment. Just a remark about the Roman subway : it has only two lines almost forming an X and it was built in 1980 for an original capacity of 150 000 people on a daily basis… never having been renovated, it serves over 700 000 !!! The amazing thing is the price… if you though Paris was cheap (and London’s fares simply out of this world), then how about paying only one euro for any destination… our half hour trip was only that much… the metro did go clickety-clack and was covered with graffiti though… no problem with us !!

We were served chilled Campari and soda, followed by brownish pasta imported from Domenico’s home region of Puglia in southern Italy! Then Domenico had prepared us a fish platter seared in a mound of sea salt which had to be scraped off in plaques… how sabroso (oops… isn’t that Spanish ? ) We ended the fiesta with a large carton of different ice creams with the oddest flavors : egg nog with a spash of alcohol, ricotta, wine grape, etc. I wasn’t with the girls when this was purchased, but AA was even able to sample taste gorgonzola ice cream. We also had some Italian chardonnay and the pink champagne which was toted in from Paris by AA.

On Sunday, this was to be our first and only outing away from Rome. A 9:30 r-v with Roberto and his accompanying driver, we sped out about 40 minutes to the east of Rome to visit Hadrian’s villa. Due to a snafu in communication, B, D and T joined us later by car after we had done the first 45 minutes of the tour. The Villa Adriana near Tibur (or modern day Tivoli) even though in ruined condition is still one of the most spectacular gardens. Emperor Hadrian not having enjoyed his Roman abode, had the villa built in the early 2nd century as his retreat. It was such a shangri-la that he governed from there as did his successors before falling into ruins during the decline of the Roman Empire. It was a complex of thirty buildings covering at least one square kilometer of which much is still unexcavated. About one hundred yards after walking in, you can see a miniature model of what was supposedly the greatest Roman example of an Alexandrian garden with its sacred landscape. The complex included palaces, a “maritime” theater (a stage surrounded by a moat), thermal baths, libraries, state rooms, and living quarters for courtiers, praetorians and slaves. We were able to espy underground tunnels for the goods and servants as only the roads and paths above ground were reserved for the high ranking residents. In mentioning high-ranking (or should I say ex-), we “bumped” into the Iron Lady !!! At the far end of the villa, we noticed Margaret Thatcher loping along with her hubby Dennis hobbling at her side. We had already seen a spoof of Dennis at the end of one of the old James Bond movies, but he did not seem any better today. They were surrounded by a small cortege of maybe two family member and two Mafia-like slick-haired Italian bodyguards. Some French tourists broke off from their much larger group (as they were calling out “c’est elle, c’est vraiment elle” (“it is her, it is really her”) and chased them down to snap photos from only ten yards away. What ploucs !! As we were waiting for B, D, and T, the cortege passed us on the way back literally within one or two yards. As I was leaning on a tree, one of the Italian guards leered back at me to see if I would pull off some foolish stunt. It is true that I could have stretched out my arm to have checked if she was actually made of “metal” or maybe I should have inquired “What’s up, Maggy ?” or “Dennis, how’s it hanging ?” Today, Hadrian’s Villa is a UNESCO World Heritage Site as was our next destination… a ten minute drive to Villa d’Este up high on the hill and smack in the town of Tivoli. From what Roberto told us, there are about 70 UNESCO heritage sites, of which over 30 are in Italy. We had further luck as we had free access to both sites as the Italians were celebrating some special commemorative week (not at the Vatican though… despite owning almost half of Parisian real estate, it is said that they still don’t mind making the buck… confirmed by our guides as they never give anybody a break !!)

Roberto set us up for lunch across the villa but since the service was so lethargic (and we were slightly pressed for time as our driver had to be back in Rome at a certain hour), we ate and had a few brewskies for free !! Villa d’Este, commissioned by Cardinal Ippolito II d’Este in the mid 1500s, is a palatial setting surrounded by a fabulous terraced garden in the late-Renaissance style. The palace overlooks a very steep slope needing hydraulic engineering innovations in bringing a sufficient water supply which was employed in cascades, water tanks, troughs and pools, water jets and fountains. Many statues had been yanked away from the nearby Villa Adriana. The most innovative fountain was a woman (goddess ? ) with about ten different sized breasts each spouting out aqua. The Fountain of the Dragons wasn’t too bad also. The palace seen from far below in the garden seemed rather staid in its grandeur and cement façade.

We bid our final farewells to B, D and T as they wanted us to go back with them and hang out at the terrace at their apartment but we were just too bushed. Roberto and the driver took us back and we dined at a tavern near the Plazza del Popolo and had our first pizzas of the trip (not nearly as good as the ones in Naples). A couple who arrived after us (they seemed to be romantically involved and yet he could have been her father), and sat next to us, got up in the middle of their order and insulted the waiter and took off. After we inquired, it seems that they were miffed after the waiter kindly suggested that a side-order of arugula (or roquette salad) was maybe not the best option !!

We checked out on Monday morning… did our final purchases and I had to pick up the jeans which had to be shortened (and eventually re-shortened back in Paris). Tita joined us in the afternoon and we had a complimentary guided tour by a certain Tosca (extremely knowledgeable and dynamic) of the Jewish quarters of Rome (or the Trastevere neighborhood) on both sides of the Tiber… Tosca also showed us the exact site where Julius Caesar had been slain by a group of nobles on March 15, 44 BC (“the Ides of March”) in some excavated sunken mall/forum in the south of Rome.

Barbara ordered us another driver for the airport for our 18:05 flight back to Paris… and once again ALITALIA left about 30 minutes late… with another cardboard sandwich (just like the seats). We got back just in time as in the local paper on the flight, we had read that Alitalia was canceling 394 flights the following day as the local air controller were going on strike !!
Back home, exhausted yet exhilarated from our Roman Holiday (not Hollywood’s 1953 version with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn… Gregory Peck’s character had an apartment on via Margutta !!), we nodded off into an imperial reverie.

Some added comments about what was seen in Roman (or Italian) culture. As seen in Naples, it was quite difficult to find mini shopping stores for everyday groceries or common consumer staples. One innovative (yet profitable ? ) venue though : I noticed one of those soda-style beverage machines selling pizza slices (hot or cold ? ). I mean, for Italy how ridiculous is that !!! Rome was filled with tourists and the Romans seemed to be in hiding (due to the heat ?) The young Italian women (between 15 and 25) were stunningly dressed mostly in white and skin sucking pants and white tops… with the occasional wide black belt with silvery studs… always a pleasure to launch the occasional eye. The older women were also fancily dressed and mostly svelte as the reputation of the Italian overweight Mammas were (as in France) mostly splayed out in the provinces. We saw several small Roman fountains where you can drink the fresh water directly as it spilled from its intricate spigots (some having ornate sculptures) but we never saw any of its aqueducts. Supposedly the water supply in ancient Rome was 1 mn cubic meters per day… and today it receives 1,8 mn cubic meters for a population that has more than tripled… I can understand that with its free free-flowing fountains !! Maybe it has been compensated by the disappearance of all those large swimming pools and hot baths, the relaxed but flabby-skinned Roman having led to the downfall of that oh so powerful empire.

WHAT... WOLFSBURG ?

Wolfsburg ? Where or what is Wolfsburg ? A German beer… a cliff-perched fortress… a lupine location… a Nintendo video game ? None of the aforementioned…

Antoinette and I were invited to the 40th birthday party of one of Antoinette’s girl pals dating back to her pre-London days, when she was traveling on Continental Europe. Bettina, actually from Germany, eventually married Bruce Harwood from England and settled down in… Wolfsburg of the former GDR (GDR meaning Global Depositary Receipt ? hmmm… no… actually it is the acronym for the German Democratic Republic which was about as democratic as the Pope was pagan ! ). This charming rural town with its vast expanse of greenery (trees, forest and shrubs) actually could be mistaken for a NYC chic suburb. And who would have imagined that Wolfsburg is implanted in the ex-East Germany of pre-1990 ?

So on the morning of Saturday, September 9th, 2006, we had to wake up in Paris around 5 AM so that we could be on our 7:15 flight from Orly Airport. We had reserved tickets on our “favorite” airline… Easyjet, the Europe’s equivalent to Southwest Airlines, with its first come, first serve at the check-in counter (for seating… does SWA do this ? ), paying meals and drinks, etc… previously used for our trips to Naples and Pisa. Easyjet allows travel to Europe’s “lesser” regions and offers interesting prices (and even more absurd departure times) only if you can reserve several months ahead of time. But direct to Wolfsburg? Alas no, but the closest EJ destination happened to be the most upcoming city in Europe today… Berlin.

We left on time and arrived even earlier at Schönefeld, Berlin’s quite modern Flughafen (airport) located to the southeast of the city. Instead of taking a taxi, we took the S-Bahn, a local train/metro (but never went underground) about a five minute walk from the terminal. The 40-minute trip curved to the northeast and allowed us to enter Berlin by the “dilapidated” eastern section. Dilapidated? Cranes, tarps, scaffoldings were everywhere!! A city in transition… sure the staid gray and concrete tenement buildings still pockmark the geography but the modernization is definitely under way. We slowly trained on the elevated railways until arriving at the Hauptbahnhof, just north of the center of Berlin. Probably one of the most modern train stations in the world and rising four floors off ground level, the Hauptbahnhof is a glassy behemoth with the tracks on the upper floor and a mall filling up the other three. It had been opened just in time for Germany’s hosting of soccer’s World Cup just this past summer.

We had no time to leave the station and visit Berlin as our “bullet train” (yes, even here!) was to leave 45 minutes later for Wolfsburg. So not having had a real breakfast, we decided to visit a “haunt” that neither AA (short for Antoinette Azzurro) or I had been able to experience in several years. We searched the mall and found a… Burger King, one of the chains to have fled France about ten years ago due to lack of profitability versus the king of crap, McDonalds. After an 11:30 AM burger, we boarded the 10-minute delayed glossy white high-speed train (tickets had been purchased a long time in advance) and underwent several more unscheduled starts and stops leaving Berlin… it could have been the “snail” train (the trip was an originally anticipated 55 minutes)… and we never knew why (no loud speaker). We finally arrived in Wolfsburg 40 minutes late… where Bruce’s parents, Gordon and Mary (very affable and fun) had been waiting for us. We thought that they had known about the delay… but we found out the next day that they had waited the entire time. German inefficiency as to poor communication?

From the train station, we could immediately seem the emblem for which Wolfsburg has its fame. W is the home to Germany’s largest automobile plant for the Volkswagen brand (remember the “peoples’ car”?) and it abuts the W train station. Four giant smokestacks can be seen it seems for miles around… W is a chic town since the VW employees happen to be some of the best paid in Germany (for factory workers). We never saw the center of town but it seemed that all the town’s citizens owned houses…

We arrived at the Harwoods (ten minute ride) where we met Bettina, Bruce’s sister and male friend and Bruce himself who was involved in the preparation of the ensuing night’s activities. Bruce’s parents had already been visiting for several weeks (in from Manchester, England) helping out in taking car of their children Jonas (8) and Emily (5). After a late spaghetti lunch, we were driven to our hotel (half mile away) which happened to be across from the birthday party in a local municipal “chateau”.

As you can imagine, we were “neckered” so we were able to get some shut-eye before the 8 PM bash. The Harwoods had rented a portion of the chateau and we were about 45 invitees to the party. I had not been to a German party since Freiburg (or even Oktoberfest in Munich) back in the late 1980s so I did not know what to expect. Bottles of all kinds of Beck’s beer (normal, Gold and lime… I felt the need to try all three for comparison purposes… actually French beers hold up well, and that is not saying much) were in ice-lined wash basins… there were also German white and red wines (did I have to compare them with the French?) and three quarters of the way through dinner, Bruce put on his special bartender’s cap and prepared killer capirinhas (there were two bottles of cachaca or Brazilian rum, plus sugar, ice, and lime wedges). And after two bottles of rum, there were about 10 bottles of vodka used…) The dinner was a sit-down buffet from the kitchen with a barbecue stand to boot outside with sausages, roasted meats and garlic/herb-filled fish. We were at a table with Bettina’s mother and her “new” mate (she was divorced and could not speak English or French… just like her mate) plus Bruce’s parents… as well as Bettina’s homosexual brother (and his mate)… we were eventually joined by the most interesting chap, a German architect studying to be a Buddhist who was involved romantically with his associate (another woman at the party who was accompanied by her husband… complicated, no ?)… these Germans know how to have fun… there was also their fourteen year old son who towered above me in height and stature… and spoke very good English. Fourteen year old Christel (already tall for her age) would have reached as high as his man breasts. The architect had been working on a new discothèque that was going to open the following weekend in Berlin.. and to be owned and managed by… Bettina!!!! Of course Bruce chipped in and the concept of course came from Bettina’s brother. As of today, we have no idea how the opening ceremonies went but I am sure that AA will want me to return to Berlin and “check out” the new enterprise. Bruce who was in media (involving VW of course) may eventually leave Wolfsburg if the concept is a success. The bar is exceptionally located in the heart of the gay quarter in Berlin.

We ate to our heart’s content and danced later into the night. AA left a bit earlier as the hotel was only a hop, skip and a jump away. An interesting story occurred halfway through the party : AA met a guest Dave Cooper visiting from the south of France. He happens to be a very good friend of the Simandls (Chris and Christine… long-time mutual friends, Chris himself having grown up in Rye) who are now living near Grasse, the perfume capital of the world, just north of Cannes. When Bruce and Bettina learned of this, they could not believe it either since they had visited C & C in southern France recently (Chris had worked on a consulting contract with VW in Wolfsburg in the past). Small world!! I was with the final departing party at 2:30 AM.

We missed morning breakfast, checked out, and met all the Harwoods in the castle reception room to help them clean up and eat some leftovers. Our next destination (driven there by Mr. Harwood) about 20 minutes away was to nearby Lehre to visit Antoinette’s uncle (Adamo, her mother’s brother) who had been in Germany and invested in one of the most reputed pizzerias in the area (must be that Italian origin) called Pizzeria Anna. There was also his son Maurizio, son-in-law and grand daughter (we were not able to meet AA’s cousine Daniela as she had just given birth in the local hospital)… we were very nicely offered lunch (communication was difficult as AA’s family conversed with AA in slangy old Italian and I was a bit lost… as I guess they had not learned much English and my German was about as sharp as a wet noodle… Adamo was very jovial and according to AA had lost mega-pounds so he no longer looked like the typical doughboy behind the ovens) and Maurizio drove us back to the Wolfsburg train station for our bullet ride home (at one point on the autobahn, he must have been cruising over 120 mph… only for a few seconds… just shows the power of the German cars and the lack of speed limits). This time all worked well and we arrived only “five” minutes late. We had three hours ahead of us (from the Hauptbanhof) before having to take the half hour airport express (a faster ride) to Schönefeld Airport.

AA had already visited Berlin since the downfall of the wall… so she knew of the major tourist destinations. We walked south from the station, crossed the river Spree which serpents across (much more than the Seine in Paris) Berlin from east to west. We passed in front of the Reichstag, a monster of a gray building which is also the seat of German federal parliament. It now has a distinctive plexi-glass (??) dome with a spiraling staircase inside à la Gugghenheim Musuem in NYC. In front of the Reichstag is a large area (almost like the Champ de Mars between the Eiffel Tower and the Ecole Militaire) now under re-planting which supposedly was the site of the final battle of WW II versus the Soviets. One block away, we saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe (or the Holocaust Memorial covering 4,7 acres), a sloping sunken site of over 2 700 rectangular concrete blocks of all sizes, ugly and not surprisingly highly controversial (a much bigger, more compact and uglier version of the round Buren columns near the Palais Royal in Paris). According to its architect Peter Eisenman, the blocks are “designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason” (‘nuff said). Here is the link which you can paste into your browser if you would like to see some details : www.war-memorial.net/mem_det.asp?ID=104. Just a few minutes away is the Brandenburg Gate which literally split the Berlin into east and west just sixteen years ago. Many remember the Brandenburg Gate with its four-horse chariot (Quadriga) as a symbolic area where thousands of Germans partied when the wall crashed.

We continued our adventures further south where I caught my first glimpse of the wall.. with its memorable graffiti to commemorate the past. There are not many areas in Berlin with the wall still standing and most are now under protection as it is needed as museum pieces for the horrible separation it represented. According to the senator of urban development “it is our duty to retain proof of this madness to guard against any possibility of its return”. On our furthest point south, we bumped into the location of Himmler’s SS & Gestapo Headquarters (near Potsdamer Platz)… all has been razed to the ground (partially damaged by bombing in the final phases of WW II and entirely demolished by 1956) but there was an open-air museum with pictures and details of their grisly undertakings… an exhibit suitably called the “Topography of Terror”. The area eventually became part of West Berlin (the wall still standing for about 200 yards was on the other side of the street from the old HQ).

We then passed by Checkpoint Charlie (part of “No Mans Land”), the well-known (spy movies galore) controlled gate and area where the Stasi (secret police) and CIA spied on each other and escape attempts both botched and successful (mostly people hidden in cars) occurred. In all, 5075 escape attempts succeeded while victims totaled 178. We saw exhibits on the street with pictures (mostly black and white… and this was less than 20 years ago!) of the GDR control towers, the stories of the different escapes (the sad story of the two guys who were gunned down one day before the wall was to fall)... as the Border Command still followed the orders of “shoot to kill” than allow the heinous crime of “flight from the Republic” along the famous “Deathstrip”. The typical geography was the wall and on the eastern side followed by a ditch (a car obstacle covering 66 miles), then a patrol road, lamp posts, 302 different watch towers (or “shooting podiums”), anti-personnel mines, tank traps (wooden tripods), an electrified alarm fence (mesh covering a total of 80 miles) and a final eastern wall (more mesh) fence… all in all an elaborate system to keep many unhappy east Germans in their totalitarian state of shock. Some of the more original escape tactics were the following : reconstructed cars with hidden positions in front of the stick shift for example, hot-air balloons, home-made motor-powered kites equipped with Trabant engines, hiding in loudspeakers, and of course the eventual escape tunnel.

If anybody is interested in a little bit of Berlin history, here it is… in May 1945, the German Reich surrendered, the Allies then separating Berlin into four zones with the Soviets getting almost the entire eastern half while the French, Brits and US portioned off the rest. On August 13th, 1961 (two years before I was born), the 96 mile Soviet boundary is closed off with barbed wire and a few days later the Berlin Wall is built (over 27 miles between the two Berlins and 70 miles separating West Berlin and the GDR)… the metro continued into East Berlin but all their stations were closed down and passed without a stop (except for one where there is a checkpoint). On August 24, 1961, the first escapee is already shot down. In December 1963, the first passes allow West Berliners to visit the East for one day. In 1968, the makeshift wall is replaced step by step by the 3,6 meter high (11,8 feet) and 1,2 meters thick (over 3,9 feet) reinforced concrete wall with its characteristic pipe-shaped top. In September 1971, the first “treaty” is signed between the two states regulating the flow of transit traffic. In October 1989, Gorbachev comes to Berlin to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR. Within one month (November 4th), about one million East Germans assemble on Alexanderplatz (actually far from the wall) to cause an uprising. And on November 9th, the Wall is open !! In July 1990, monetary union occurs and all border controls are removed… and finally on October 3rd, 1990, the newly founded states of the GDR (as you know, there was an East Germany outside of Berlin) become members of the Federal Republic of Germany (“federal” being an improvement over “democratic” clearly).

Other places we did not have time to visit : Hitler’s suicide bunker, Goering’s Air Defense Ministry, Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry (but maybe who cares about these two ? ), Alexpanderplatz, and the overall nightlife (Berlin is known as the party city of Europe with its bars, cocktail lounges, clubs and biergartens. There is a great bike ride we may have to try once if we ever return… to party in Berlin with the Harwoods.

Just a few personal thoughts : I found Berlin to be extremely modern and almost too modern… as it needed to be rebuilt after Allied bombing I suppose and also the scads of money needed to be invested for their eastern brethren after breaching the ugly wall. I was mesmerized by the black and white pictures of the trenches and watch towers (snow on the ground) as this was not even twenty years ago as we were merrily prancing along out of college and into our more “serious” lives without really realizing that fellow Europeans were being shot down like chickens fleeing the coop… how morbid and it makes one wonder…

Titanic Tuscan Travels

What a better way to start the tale of the Tuscan adventures than by making the first brew the day after Hallow’s Eve, otherwise on All Saint’s Day (November 1st)… as Italy happens to be one of the most pious countries in Europe.

Antoinette (Azzurro, to be considered as AA for sake of space) and I left Paris Orly on a rainy chilly day on one of our favor ite airlines… Easyjet, one of the premier low cost European airlines whose major advantage (over Ireland’s Ryanair) is to take off from the principal hubs (instead of Ryanair’s Beauvais… almost 1,5 hours from Paris ! ) Several years ago, I had been disappointed by Easyjet as I considered their blatantly low fares fallacious after having wanted to travel to Nice to visit the Simandl family in Grasse (near Cannes). The published fares on their orange-glow billboards were enticing (29 euros one way) but these fares seemed to be only available during the oddest hours / on weekdays / and not before at least six months down the road… what I did not realize is that Paris-Nice is the most sought of travel destinations by the Riviera-crazed Parisians !

Easyjet’s otherwise (very) low fares (76 euros round trip to Pisa) were attractive (we had used it to fly to Naples) as they have quick airport turnarounds (no food served unless paid for at hefty prices), only one onboard baggage, and access to the plane (you choose your own seat) according to your arrival time at the ticket counter (spread into four groups). Despite taking off at an ungodly hour (8 AM forcing us to wake up at 5:15 AM), all went well and the one hour twenty minute trip went without a hitch. The Parisian weather seemed to be pan-European as it was drizzling in Pisa upon our arrival. We eventually learned that it had been raining non-stop for almost two weeks ! Just to let you in on a secret : the following day and through the rest of the entire odyssey, we had BEAUTIFUL weather !! AA, knowing the Italian climate well, dreaded the autumn Tuscan season as October happens to be the second wettest month (after November) for the region.

I had rented a car on the Internet by simply choosing the lowest price on the smallest model since we were only to be two with small suitcases. Using ArgusCarHire.com, I had opted for a three-door Fiat Punto (our motto : when in Tuscany, do like the Touchtones)… we eventually had an upgrade to a five-door Smart Passion… the key in my opinion behind the upgrade was to do it only three days before our departure (latest possible) so that if the option was not available, we would get the better car (with sliding roof to boot). We did not choose the extra insurance (in total, almost the entire cost of the car for the week) as I bet on my lucky star…

What is nice about the Pisa Galileo Galilei airport ? You leave the airport and within 100 yards, you are already in the city of Pisa… our only destination in this lack of tourist site city was as you can all imagine… the Leaning Tower of Pizza. Located in the northwestern tip of the city (partially walled in), our wayward tower temporary destination did offer us a few problems as one-way streets and totally forbidden roadways (we even took one through the market square and only realized later that it was totally illegal) made the eventual access labyrinthian (this dilemma made the rest of our on-road trip difficult in all the Tuscan cities).

Pisa dominated the Western Mediterranean between the 11th and 13th centuries thanks to its powerful navy and trade with Spain and North Africa. Oddly enough, its decline began when the city’s river (Arno) began to silt up creating a salt marsh now dividing the city from the sea. During its heyday, their cultural revolution led to several splendid buildings of the era. The Tower is only one of the religious edifices to sprout up from the Campo dei Miracoli (“Field of Miracles”) including the Duomo, the Baptistery (the building for baptisms and usually separated physically from the cathedral or church… all over Italy) and the Campo Santo Cemetery (containing earth from the Holy Land). The architecture of all the buildings were Moorish including inlaid marble in geometric patterns (arabesques) with Romanesque colonnades and spiky Gothic niches and pinnacles. We did not visit the most ancient Duomo (meaning cathedral… began in 1063) but went directly to that most awkward looking of creations, the leaning tower. Known as the Torre Pendente, the first stone was laid in 1173 and eventually completed in 1350 (or 177 years !! ) The tower began to tip before the third floor was even finished in 1274 (took 100 years just to get to this point out of a total of eight floors) !!! The tower is supported on shallow stone slabs only ten feet deep embedded in sandy silt subsoil (with whiffs of clay, stone and rubble). The belfry (or bell tower) added in 1350 brought the total height to 179 feet as its seven large bells just added pressure to the kilter. Today, the tower is leaning about 18 feet from its vertical axis… and I felt a bit of pity for the locals in their abodes beneath the potential crush as surely this tower will fall… eventually. Recent engineering interventions have corrected the tilt by 14 inches (enough ? ) and the visits to the tower were only reopened in December 2001 (when looking up at the tower from the ground, it may be an optical illusion but it seems that the bell tower is slightly straighter than the rest). The core of the tower is empty as the staircase winds around. We waited in line and just missed the tour so we had 1,5 hours to kill (we were able to have lunch)… the marble steps were worn down on the different sides as we made our way upwards and you could feel the “lean” in the structure making it a bit difficult (AA was teetering). I was not able to walk up with my video camera case (barred at the door) as any large object was considered a bomb… so it had to be left inside a locker with other rucksacks near the ticket counter across the miraculous field. The views from the tippy (or tipsy) top were incredible as we dwarfed the nearby duomo and baptistery. It was slightly slippery and windy (the rain had halted) and the guardrails were ridiculously flimsy allowing any nutcase to end his days on purpose… or on a day like today by accident due to the slippery slope !!

Back to the car parked in a nearby public garage (paying of course) and we were off to the east and then south to arrive at our lodging at the Castello di Montalto (about 23 km east of Siena). We could have taken the highway all the way but this would have added about 70 km through the outskirts of Firenze (Florence) before plunging on a southerly course to Siena and then east. We decided to leave the highway as early as possible (eventually ended up going by the airport once again) and make a bee-line to Siena through the countryside as we had time on our hands. We stopped off to stock the larder as we knew we had an equipped kitchen upon our arrival.

When we had rented out our lodging at the Castello, Vicki Uslaner, our timeless travel partner (Prague, Napa, California, etc) was originally part of the travel plans… but she had the opportunity to transfer out of the backbiting Parisian George V Four Seasons Hotel and hie off to the San Francisco region for FS marketing on a more global basis. We missed her joyful company…

So… we ended up with a two bedroom, two bathroom and kitchen apartment (there are also small independent houses) but all was not lost. AA had friends in from Rome staying with us overnight… Barbara (pronounced Baabi) and her husband Domenico. AA and Baabi know each other from AA’s time in London where she worked with Goldman Sachs for several years.

The castello, located at the end of a winding and earthy two mile lane (a bit out of nowhere) offered many services which we eschewed (breakfast… only the first day ; a pool - closed ; ping pong ; sale of its own farm products - wine & olive oil ; guided tours - who needed those with AA having contacts ? ; cooking classes ; tennis court ; bocce ball ; trails around the castle ; etc). Sounds great for the summer when you want to loll around but we were there for cooking dinners and sleeping… this was AA’s third time to the castello as she had been previously with her Australian family and once with friends.

Geographically, Castello di Montalto is officially in Chianti (Chianti, or at least the wines for me, was west of Siena) and very centrally located for touring and lies about 125 km from Pisa, 80 km from Florence and 230 km from Rome to the south). The owners (Giovanni and Diana Coda-Nunziante) who live in the castle have a total estate of 700 acres. And they can lodge up to 50 guests in their 9 different guest houses/rooms. Giovanni and Diana came by to visit us the first night (I never saw them again as a few days later they flew to the US to see one of their children)… Giovanni is of the old Italian aristocracy… and Diana is an American… sound familiar ?

We made ourselves at home in the apt… there are a few key things to make one’s stay more agreeable (practiced in most of our destinations) which must be transported from Paris : a bottle of pink de Telmont champagne to baptize the arrival, AA’s Ipod with accompanying speakers, a brochette of several trashy magazines (Gala, etc) and the video camera to capture on tape those treasured moments… and not having TV. We even bought on the way to Siena a bottle of lemoncello (lemon liqueur) which had nothing to do with AA’s homemade version back in Paris with pure alcohol and true Sicilian lemons.

The night of our arrival, Domenico and Babi invited us out to a very fancy restaurant (the Relais Villa Arceno dating back to 1671) in nearby San Gusme (literally only about 1,5 miles away by a straight line but about 15 minutes by car as there was not a direct road). It was a three star hotel and the restaurant was fit for a king with very few and spread out tables (funnily enough, we had Domenico and Babi last night as they are staying in AA’s newly purchased rental apt across her terrasse for four days). Some highlights of the repast : ravioli stuffed with pecorino (local cheese made from sheep’s milk) and parmesan fontina with paper-thin slices of truffles ; main course of lamb stuffed with roasted mint and thyme. Wine : 1997 Nobile du Montepulciano (more below), Cantina de Reserve.

On Sunday (October 9th), Domenico took the wheel as we all scampered into his car and headed south for travels into the Tuscan wine country of heralded vineyards of the Montalcino and Montepulciano regions (these are actually towns). As he mostly took country roads (always winding… more about my impressions of Italian driving later), we drove through Asciano, Buonconvento and Montalcino in order to get to mass (yes… Sunday morning) in the renowned Abbey di Sant’Antimo by 11 PM (over one hour away). Founded, according to legend, by Charlemagne in 781, this Benedictine church has inspired poets and painters with its setting against a background of tree-clad hills in the Starcia Valley. The exterior is decorated with interlaced blank arcades carved with symbols of the four Evangelists. We were able to listen to the elderly Augustinian monks who sang the Gregorian chants… the unfortunate aspect was that the sermon was about fifteen minutes - 8 minutes over the limit would howl my French grandmother ! - and the entire mass was one hour and fifteen minutes, too long for any devout Catholic.

We were off eastbound to the town of Pienza, which I would characterize as the typical Tuscan village with… its massive Renaissance-style Duomo (Pope Pius II ordered it built in 1459) and the surrounding lanes filled with tourists buying all the local wares. Known as the “ideal” or “utopian” city due to the fact that it was one of the best planned Renaissance towns with a model of ideal living and government. Hmmm… maybe Macchiavelli was here…

Off to the hamlet of Montefollonico where we walked down memory lane for Domenico and Baabi as they had their “secret” rendez-vous here while they were courting at times far from Rome. They brought us down to the end of a road where from atop of a cliff/hillock, we had an amazing view of the Tuscan countryside far below, a view known as the “End of the World”.
The town of Montepulciano was next on our hit list built high on a narrow limestone ridge and which can be seen from far, far away… even from Montefollonico. At 1950 feet above sea level, it is one of the highest of Tuscany’s hilltop towns. Parking outside the walled fortifications (built in 1511 for Cosimo I), we walked a long winding street called the Corso which ended in the main square crowning the summit of the hill. The streets are crammed with palazzi (palaces) and churches and the town is principally known for its delicious local Vino Nobile wines (made with Sangiovese grapes on the Tuscan hills, the grape being the base for all Tuscan wines). Upon our walk back, I had my first and only gelato (special Italian sorbet) of the trip (a mix of melon and cherry in a cone). We eventually drifted back to our castle in the air as D and B had to head back for the two hour plus trip back to Rome. Thanks to Domenico’s driving (like a real Italian), I was able to videotape directly from the car, a feat which would be quasi-impossible for the rest of our trip.

Monday, October 10th

AA and I had to base our schedule around a wine-tasting session near (as usual on top of a hill) Montalcino (we had blown by the day before) the home of the “brunello” wine, the aristocratic red wine of Sangiovese fame. We were able to park inside the walls (yet paying… as usual), and we walked around to once again see many churches and the local duomo (every town MUST have one). At every narrow, winding and steep street corner, there were enotecas (wine bars or tourist traps ? )… just trying to get you to purchase the brunello of the day. We stopped by the 14th century “Rocca” or Fortezza, an imposing abandoned castle with its spiked angular towers. From its ramparts (built by Cosimo I in 1571), one can supposedly see on a crispy clear day the islands of Elba and Corsica ! We just saw the Orcia Valley and the Umbrian mountains.

We had little time in Montalcino before venturing off to our wine-tasting only five minutes away at Poggio Antico, a very modern vineyard (only since 1980) and the young German tour guide (two other American couples with us from the same family) had been brash enough to qualify their wines as the “King of brunellos” (with the crown on their bottle). This wine-tasting had been set up by our contact David Fink, a wine aficionado himself who had let us stay in his hotel in Carmel-by-the-Sea in California. The guide left us with few warm memories as her horse laugh (at almost every comment) and just the commercial aspect of the entire tour (she had been there for only six months) made us want to bee-line for the tasting… the vats were all stainless steel and the barrels were in underground refrigerated compartments unlike the real thing… and these guys are the Kings ??? After the tasting (free for us thanks to David’s connection… 15 euros a pop for the others). AA ended up buying three bottles including the Brunello “reserve” di Montalcino (1997) for a lofty 43 euros… their “cheapest” bottle was a 2003 Rosso di Montalcino at 15 euros, with 27 the next category and up to 67 euros for a Brunello di Montalcino (1988)… or was that the price for the case…
We headed off to Bagno Vignoni but bypassed it hoping to reach a restaurant in Monte Amiata (30 minutes later) and found out that it was the wrong town (it didn’t even have a bar) so back to Bagno for a very late lunch (2:15 PM). Bagno Vignoni is known for its sulphurous hot spring thermal baths used during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Clients included St. Catherine of Siena (1347-80… and more on her later) who had scrofula (form of tuberculosis) and Lorenzo de’ Medici, or the Magnificent (1449-92) with arthritis. The pool is no longer open for bathing but the arcaded, stone lined pool is worth the architecture. We were famished and ended up in a trattoria (a typical Italian restaurant) with AA and I splitting a 1,3 kilo Florentine steak (this just had to be done before our departure). I also had wild boar carpaccio as an appetizer plus a glass of Montalcino Nobile wine (noblesse oblige).

Off we were to the northeast to Cortona (tack on another hour), a partially fortified city built into a hillside à la Minas Tirith in the Hobbitt trilogy. Cortona is one of the oldest Tuscan cities, founded by the Etruscans (they immigrated to Italy from Asia Minor in 900 BC and they are known for animal sacrifices and reading the will of the gods in animal entrails and … cloud patterns - they were eventually eclipsed by Roman rule in 395 BC) and was a major seat of power in medieval times. It was “sold” to Florence after being defeated by Naples (much further south ! ) in 1409. We parked outside the city walls and immediately had to climb steep streets just to arrive at the flattish main street. We visited the Museo dell’Accademia Etrusca, one of the regions most rewarding museums with a Etruscan bronze chandelier dating back to the 4th century BC and an Egyptian wooden funerary boat (2nd century BC). Afterwards we walked to the western part of town to via Janelli, a short street with some of the oldest surviving houses in Italy with their overhanging upper floors built out on massive timbers and partially supported by wooden tresses poking out of the building on the ground floor. We had to head west back to our castello and it was pitch black as we had to take winding mountain roads… and had difficulty in getting our bearings (more on Italian driving later).

Tuesday, October 11th

This was to be the day of attacking the “capital” of Tuscany, as we had to get up at 7 AM (is this a vacation ? ) and we had to be in central Florence at 10 AM in order to rendez-vous with our guide (set up by AA). We left at 8:00 believing that two hours would be widely sufficient… but ten minutes later, we were abruptly stopped several miles outside of Siena due to road work and eventual one-lane “rush” hour traffic. We lost over 25 minutes on this bit but tried to recover on the northern leg between Siena and Florence. Then just outside of Florence (the city doesn’t have a beltway), the traffic backed up (reminded me of coming into Los Angeles from northern Santa Barbara) as we were funneled into the southern suburbs… finally getting to the Arno River (cutting thru Florence from east to west) at about 9:55 AM. Our meeting point was at Piazza Republica with our guide Violetta. Since we had seen cars in the city (driving like nuts and with swarms of Vespas or mopeds which we had not noticed elsewhere in Tuscany), we did not believe in having parking problems but one-ways prevented us from getting to the city center (we learned later that only residents could advance to the center). We called our guide to vent off our frustration and she eventually walked the five minutes which separated us… we were parked in a residential spot (totally illegal area without a parking sticker) and our guide suggested a public parking with attendant inside a building which she had just passed on the way. We had driven into one earlier much further away only for the guy to say that it was booked solid for cars staying the whole day !!! We finally lucked out with this one (only 21 euros for the day instead of the probable 35 euro fine… plus potential boot or tow away) which was much closer to our final meeting spot but AA can definitely admit that I was fuming in the car due to the inefficiency of the Italian system. We were ready to “rock” at 10:30…

We were back in the main plaza before heading off to see… the Duomo (or Santa Maria del Fiore) holding up to 20 000 people and whose dome (1436) was designed by Brunelleschi to at the time dwarf even the great buildings of ancient Greece and Rome… and without any scaffolding, considered revolutionary at the time ! The sheer size was typical of Florentine determination (especially against its archenemy Siena) to lead in everything as the cathedral still stands as the largest building in the city. The separated baptistery in front of the main entrance of the duomo is one of the oldest buildings in Florence dating back to the 4th century. Its renowned doors christened as “The Gate of Paradise” by Michelangelo were crafted by Lorenzo Ghiberti between 1424-52 and portrays ten polished brass panels with scenes from the Bible… commissioned in 1401 to mark Florence’s deliverance from the Black Death (or bubonic plague), which wiped out up to half of Europe in several regions. To make this church unique, there is also a separated campanile (very tall rectangular tower) to the right in white, green and pink marble with the top (276 feet) only being 20 feet shorter than the tip of the dome. In front of the duomo, swarms of tourist groups with their respective guides hustled and bustled as they literally fought for room on the plaza. These groups were of diverse origins : US, French, Italian, Asian (several countries) and even one from India… the line into the cathedral was lengthy and it was not in our plans anyway. Our goal for the day was to visit the Galleria dell’Accademia (or the Academy of Fine Arts) and the Uffizi (meaning “offices”)… it took a five minute walk to the Academy and there was a 2,5 hour long line serpenting around the building… why the long line ? To see Michelangelo’s David (the slayer of Goliath) of course. Founded in 1563, the Academy was the first European school to teach the techniques of drawing, painting and sculpture. Many of Michelangelo’s most important works have been housed here since 1873 including the David (17 feet high) which had to be removed for protection from the weather and pollution. Two other smaller replicas are located elsewhere in Florence, one which we had seen in Piazza della Signoria (near the Uffizi), an outdoor sculpture gallery including Cellino’s bronze statue Perseus (holding Medusa’s head), the Neptune Fountain (commemorating Tuscan naval victories… Neptune’s hand had been missing as some tourist had sat on it a few months ago… and it broke…), and a copy of the writhing figures in Michelangelo’s The Rape of the Sabine Women (1583).

We were able to “sneak” into the Academy as our official guide was able to get us in way ahead of our original afternoon appointment. Before espying the original David, we saw the original Rape of the Sabines and several unfinished works of muscular slaves and gods struggling to free themselves from their marble prisons. It was interesting to see the David, marble sling, shlong and all but… no way would I have waited over two hours for this oeuvre d’art.

Off to the Uffizi built in 1560-80 for Duke Cosimo I’s new administration offices - haven’t we seen this guy everywhere ? - Cosimo’s heirs used the museum to display the Medici family art treasures creating what is now the oldest gallery in the world with plans to double the entire exhibition space by 2007 (watch out oh sacred Louvre ! ) The works of art were finally “donated” to the Florentines in 1737 by the last of the surviving Medici, Anna Maria Lodovica. According to the guide, the Americans favorite work is of course Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (1485) showing the Roman goddess of love, after being born in a storm in the Aegean Sea, she is blown ashore by the winds and awaited by nymphs holding a cloak in which to wrap her body. I was looking forward to this also, the memory dating back to my youth as my brothers and I were quizzed with famous painting flash cards at the dinner table.

We were able to see other great works of the pre- and Renaissance era : Giotto (1266-1337) and his Gothic art ; Piero della Francesca (1410-92) and his Duke and Duchess of Urbino ; Fra Filippo Lippi ; Botticelli’s other works Primavera and Adoration of the Magi ; Leonardo da Vinci’s The Annunciation and another Adoration of the Magi (unfinished) ; Raphael ; Titian and even Michelangelo himself (a very versatile and tortured being). Other European artists were displayed with Caravaggio and the Dutch masters Rubens, Van Dyck and Rembrandt. Our guide gave us the origin of the word “grotesque” which comes from the paintings on the ceiling of one of the long corridors. The ugly characters and (m)animals portrayed in absurd positions originally were discovered in caves or grottoes… we had heard a comment from tourists in the streets that Florence was the greatest art city in the world. Violetta, our guide, said that unfortunately this was not so… as Paris was clearly the leader as many of the great Italian works (aka Mona Lisa) were shipped off to France… some by Napoleon’s “request” and other by Italian artist “defections”.
After bidding farewell to our guide, we took a private shuttle bus to a northern suburb called Fiesole as AA had reserved our lunch at the luxury hotel (Orient E xpress chain) Villa San Michele which had astounding views of Florence as we were perched on the patio in the hills overlooking the city far below in the afternoon mist. The menu of risotto with Taleggio cheese and caramalized pears, followed by guinea fowl in vanilla pod sauce and vegetable flan. The wine we had was a 2000 Boscarelli Vino Nobile di Montepulciano.

After our return shuttle, we walked to Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) which like its namesake happens to be the oldest and most popular bridge in Florence dating back to 1345, designed by Taddeo Gaddi, Giotto’s pupil. It was the only bridge to escape the WWII bombing and the original workshops filled with butchers, tanners and blacksmiths had given away (since 1593 due to the noise and stench) to high street goldsmiths specializing in new and antique jewelry. The oldest workshops have rear extensions overhanging the river supported by logs à la Cortona method. On the opposite southern side (very few tourists), this was a neighborhood of small houses and shops selling antiques as well as artisans crafting their wares (furniture, silver, gold, etc) while chipping, drilling, inserting gold leaf, etc. We walked by the Medici’s Palazzo Pitti, a palace originally built for a wealthy banker (Lucca Pitti) in 1457 and sold to the Medicis a century later (the Pitti heirs were bankrupt) for it to become the main family residence… all later Florentine rulers lived there and today it houses several museums. We dove into the small side streets before heading back towards the car… and stopping off at the world’s most prestigious and beautiful “pharmacy” or erboristeria - herbalist - (Officina Profumo/Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella) filled with perfumes and aromas (you get sick to your stomach after awhile) in this most cloister-like of cadres with its ceiling frescoes. AA was disappointed by many of the exotic elixirs made either by the Camaldoli monks or the more recent concoctions sprayed on those little white sticks… but she ended up buying a herbal bath gel anyway.

We picked up the car and decided to return using a different method : trying the Italian toll highway (heading east) for a few exits before bee-lining south straight to the castello. Unfortunately we missed our exit (all exits were separated by a lengthy 20 miles unlike in the US and France) due to the fact that the only sign was only about 500 yards before the exit… it was dark… I was in the left lane, large trucks were rumbling along in the right lane (only a two lane highway). We eventually got off at the next exit and paid the toll (all automated with no personnel !!) and realized that this was not the right exit… had to get on to get to next toll to have a “better” road to get back. We ended up losing way over an hour, did maybe an extra 70 km (to compensate for the kms saved between Pisa and the castello) and ended up on sinister winding mountainous roads (we were all the way near Cortona when we headed back west).

Wednesday, October 12th

Nuts… we had to be up at 7:15 for our appointment at 9 AM with another guide to visit the second largest city in the area… Siena. This time we were prepared for the road delays as we left at 8:15 for a normal twenty minute trip. The delays were not as bad as the prior day… and we still arrived ten minutes late as we ended up at a northern door of the walled city instead of a desired more proximate (to the castillo and meeting point) southerly one. Paid parking had to be done for all tourists once again but even the local residents have outside-the-wall reserved parking areas. To get to the main plaza, we had to climb a very steep drive… with houses/apartments on each side… I mean these people are crazy to live like this. The principal sights are located in the network of narrow streets and alleys around the fan-shaped Piazza del Campo (where we met Laura Meattini, our guide). Hardly any street is level since Siena, like Rome, was built on seven hills. At one point, you have a fantastic view of the city, then a few yards later you are engulfed by the medieval houses. Aerial bridges and corridors linking buildings on opposite sides of the street are typical architecture. Siena is an interesting city due to the competition that exists between the 17 contrade (or parishes) whose animal symbols are everywhere on carvings, plaques and street signs. The buildings around the Campo (or field) symbolize the golden age of the city between 1260 and 1348 (one building is the Palazzo Pubblico, the graceful Gothic town hall completed in 1342 and embellished with a 330 foot belltower, the second highest medieval tower in Italy). Siena’s decline began in 1348 when the Black Death besieged the city and killing almost half the population… and then around 1550, thousands more were mortally wounded in an 18-month siege by the Florentines (they are still “enemies” today). The victors repressed all further development and Siena sort of remained frozen in time, thus still crammed with medieval buildings only undergoing renovation presently.

Laura told us of the folklore (and the tradition even continues today) which makes Siena unique… the Palio is Tuscany’s most celebrated festival taking place on July 2nd and August 16th each year around the Campo. It is a bareback horse race dating back to 1283 with the jockeys representing the 17 districts (but only nine horses run at a time - by drawing straws - due to the lack of room). The races are preceded by heavy betting and the race only lasts 90 seconds (twice around the main square which has mattresses erected on the sides of the buildings where you have the harshest turns). Supposedly huge amounts of money are paid for a ringside view of the race (up in or on top of the buildings). Thousands of people cram into the middle of the piazza. It is a no-holds barred race meaning you can whip, tug, pull your competition (horse and jockey) instead of prodding your own stallion. What does the winner get ? Only a banner (or palio) but social recognition which will last a lifetime. One jockey has won twice in the last three years but under different “colors” as he contracts himself to the highest paying parish… what a life !!

We were off to see the wizard (oops… the Duomo)… and the facade had scaffolding (due to… renovation) but they had a picture painted on the scaffold netting which was mighty impressive. This duomo happens to be one of the most spectacular in Italy. The Sienese were in constant battle with Florence to have the largest cathedral… and in 1339 when Siena wanted to add on a new nave making it the largest in Christendom, the Black Death hit and only the far wall of the unfinished nave was completed (an open-air parking lot became the rest and you can even have your car parked above one of the column bases). We were very lucky as we visited the duomo later in the afternoon (without our guide) as the inlaid marble floor was absolutely magnificent… and only uncovered two months a year !!

Around 1 PM, we ended our guided visit at San Domenico, a behemoth of a barn-like Gothic (and ugly) church completed in 1340 (114 years to complete). But inside, there was an exquisite chapel built to store Saint Catherine’s (Siena’s patron saint) well-preserved head which is now kept in a gilded marble tabernacle on the altar. It reminded me of the unveiling of Sean Connery’s head (by Rudyard Kipling) in the movie The Man Who Would Be King. Saint Catherine’s withered finger (what ? after all those thermal baths at Bagno Vignoni !!! ) can also be seen (close up) under glass a few yards away from the chapel. Supposedly Catherine experienced many of her visions and received her stigmata (body lesions representing Christ’s wounds) in this church.

We left Siena at about 3:30 PM and headed southwest to San Galgano (not in our original plans), one of my favorite destinations of the trip (but a bit out in the boondocks)… one hour later, we arrived at this ruined roofless Cistercian abbey parked in a dense woodland. Begun in 1218 by the local monks who despite espousing poverty became wealthy by selling wool from their sheep flocks. The abbey was corruptly administered (sounds like Opus Dei of the da Vinci Code) in the 14th century and eventually dissolved in 1651. But the real attraction of the area is what you will discover inside the beehive-shaped chapel of Montesiepi (built an even earlier 1185) perched on top of a nearby hill. The legend of King Arthur and Excalibur (one of my favorite movies of all time… move over !! )… the sword in the stone legend is no longer a fable ! In the middle of this chapel, Saint Galgano’s sword is literally embedded in stone (almost up to the hilt). Galgano, the son of noble parents, was born in 1148 and he grew into a brave but dissolute young knight. He saw his life as futile and turned to God, thus renouncing the material world. When he tried to break his sword against a rock as a symbol of his rejection of war, it was swallowed by the stone. Of course he interpreted this omen as a sign of God’s approval. He built a hut on the site (now the chapel) and eventually died a hermit in 1181. Pope Urban III declared him a saint and an example to all Christian knights in 1185.

Today due to vandalism, the sword’s hilt is covered by a square meter of domed plexiglass which is unfortunate. AA and I befriended the woman owner of the shop (and warden of the sword) alongside the chapel selling locally-made herbs, wines, olive oils, etc who had been working there for over forty years… and who pitched out a few stories. About one year ago, she heard a crash as vandals broke the glass covering and stamped on the sword end thus breaking it and the “curator” eventually had to patch it up (you can barely see the repair). We stayed with her about one half hour before heading off to a wine bar down the slope for a glass of local vino (AA had a local chardonnay while I tested a biologically enhanced red wine… which turned out to be awful and slightly fizzy). I bought some honey-flavored grappa (Italian fire-water liqueur) and even some special grappa glasses (with small bulbs at the bottom). Instead of taking the highway back to the castello, we stuck to the more direct route of smaller winding mountain roads (as you can tell, during our entire trip we preferred to avoid the big roads).

Thursday, October 13th

This was our first lazy day (for once) as we left at 11:15 for San Gimignano (known as the “City of Beautiful Towers” with 14 of the original 76 windowless towers still standing dating back to the 13th century), a walled in well-preserved small fortress town (sound familiar ?) with its distinctive skyline northwest of Siena… not being rush hour, we almost sailed through the one-lane road delay and arrived one hour later in this medieval perched-on-top-of-a-hill-town (again, sound familiar ? ). The town lay on the main pilgrim route between northern Europe and Rome before the pest and the route’s eventual diversion led to its economic decline (revitalized since due to tourism and local wine production). We ended up parking in the final third potential parking lot (furthest from the town) as the other two were crammed with… tourists. Our favorite moment was actually on the path outside the city walls with silence and gorgeous views of the Tuscan countryside below. Then we were off to our second pre-programmed wine tasting session of our trip as we had a private tour of Castello della Paneretta (in Barberino Val d’Elsa… closer to Siena), specializing in chiantis, the less noble wine versus the reputed brunellos. Our guide was fantastic !! English speaking, we spent some time listening to the castle’s history, went inside for a tour and then down into the cellar (with sealed up secret passages, etc), then finally back up for some excellent wine tasting (for this we had to chalk up some euros… a few bottles were purchased including a magnum of their better quality wine as well as a bottle of spicy local olive oil). Wine-making dated back to 1596 (unlike the newness of Poggio Antico) and the well-known Strozzi family purchased it in 1696 and eventually sold it in 1984 to the Albisetti family (who rarely live there). Owning 309 hectares (mostly woods), it only produces 700 hectoliters of wine from 18 hectares of vineyards !! Using the Sangiovese grape (also the base of most chiantis), the vineyard prides themselves on also using a unique canaiolo (10 up to 50% for some of their wines) grape, the only vineyard to do so… with long-term plans of producing a 100% canailo (sounds too much like that canola oil which is supposedly so bad for your health). Afterwards just imagine my driving on those… small mountainous roads.

Friday, October 14th

Back to our abnormal schedule, we had to be up and running at 6:45 AM in order to be in the northeast suburb of Florence for our pre-scheduled private cooking class at 9:30 AM. We left at 7:15 for Settignano and ended up using the toll highway east of Florence. Except for a mile-long crazy one lane road entering into the hillside town over looking Florence (the main road was barred for some unknown reason)… crazy due to the fact that it was a two way street !! We eventually ran into a truck near the end (another car was behind us) and blessed our good fortune since we had not run into the truck halfway through !! We did out first illegal parking (no close public parking) on one of the side streets and near to our final restaurant destination. We actually arrived 20 minutes ahead of time !! At 9:30, we met our teacher chef Damiano, a 60ish owner of his own restaurant and vinoteca (wine bar), and his married daughter Silvia (definitely a family enterprise). AA took notes the entire morning as Damiano prepared a large slab of pork stuffed with fresh rosemary with further punctured holes filled with a garlic, salt and pepper mixture. The pork was cooked in milk until tender and then stewed with finely chopped vegetables including carrots and celery (I cringed at first since I detest celery but it ended up being delicious… it’s raw celery I can’t ingurgitate). Then he prepared the desserts (he had a big buffet party for 70 people that afternoon with several members of the family coming in later to help him out) with measured amounts of eggs, milk, cream and sugar and then including the following varieties : fourme d’Ambert (a light French blue cheese) with creme anglaise (infused with lemon-spiced olive oil… impossible to find in the public markets to AA’s chagrin… pistachios - the best in the world found at the base of Mount Etna in Sicily) ; a dark chocolate mousse (to be put into a crepe) with pink pepper corn and ground up green coffee bean sauce. These delicacies had to be made before the next preparation in order to chill in the fridge. All his creations were invented by himself. He is also known all over Italy for his next invention : flour-less and egg-less gnocchi !! He used starch-filled yellow flaky potatoes which he mashed and rolled into serpent-like strings (or branches) and then cut up into one-inch pieces (he needed sprinkles of potato flour on the rolling surface). These gnocchi were served with cheese from the Piedmont region. We did not do the cooking ourselves (except for some stirring) as we preferred to scour the bottom of the mixing bowls with spoons). We had the delicious lunch served by Damiano (he refused to join us) and we had three glasses of wine including the chianti from the previous day’s castello (what a coincidence ! ) and an Italian dessert wine. It was very hot out and sun was streaming on me as I had a view of Florence off in the distant boiling mist. We eventually returned to the castello at about 4:30 PM (for once not in the dark) as we were able to relax… on the eve of our departure.

Saturday, October 15th

The next morning (and night before) we packed and is was difficult since knowing that Easyjet would only allow one bag on board and we had about seven bottles of wine… we were so packed to the gills, that I had to put two grappa glasses in my coat pocket !! Our burden consisted of the following : six wine bottles including a magnum ; grappa (and the four glasses) ; 12-year old balsamic vinegar ; the ginger-perfumed olive oil ; pici (special Italian pasta) ; a tall translucent dispenser of 50% garlic, chili pepper and parsley ; a bottle of Amaretto di Serono (half the Parisian price) ; perfumed bath gel ; left over spaghetti ; two fancy wine doseurs (invented by Damiani) so that the individual glass of wine will be aerated in a glass bubble before filling it ; and fond memories.

We just had to add one last walled city before our flight (4 PM) so we drove through the countryside (avoiding the highways and getting lost on several occasions) to arrive in Lucca, about twenty miles north of Pisa. Lucca was a colony of ancient Rome in 180 BC with the Roman legacy evident in the regular grid pattern of its streets… also it was the only city we visited that was actually flat !! AA had already been there so we did not loiter (also we were running out of time and we did not want to test traffic around Pisa). Instead of parking outside, we were one of those rare cars that charged through the vehicle-less streets

Nothing notable on the flight back except for some savvy reconnoitering at the departure gate as three flights were leaving at the same time (lines all over the mini-terminal)… after hanging out in the lounge, we eventually were the last ones on the (half-empty) plane as AA had her eyes peeled on the wrong line !!

Now to conclude some interesting facts and impressions…

I could not believe the scads of tourists believing that we were off-season… error ! but what would it have been in the middle of the summer ? Tuscany has more duomos, palazzis, plazas, churches, etc than any place I know… all the major sights were within easy walking distance of the main plazas which was a pleasure even though just getting to the city center (from the car parked outside) was sometimes a hassle. At no time were we ever hassled as Florence and Pisa are well known areas for rampant pickpocketing. Car theft was possible but… why ours ? And violent crime in Tuscany is rare…

I have read in an Italian guide that “city centers are only recommended to the confident driver”. Florence was mad… and supposedly Siena, San Gimignano and Lucca do not allow non-residents to drive in the walls (I guess we screwed up in Lucca). Bicycles and mopeds are well known not to abide by traffic lights and other vehicular laws.

Driving in the countryside was mostly a pleasure thanks to the views and winding roads (which I ejoy) but you had to be aware of “roadkill”. If cars had tongues in Italy, then my Smart car would have had its trunk licked several times. I do not drive particularly slowly but I guess that the Italian drivers take themselves for Mario Andretti or Schumacher. They will even attempt to pass on blind turns… in one incident, two cars passed us on a blind turn (they seemed to be chasing each other) and the second car missed an oncoming car by a few yards as horns blared and headlights flared. On the highway, mini-Fiat Puntos cruised by us at times… I will admit that the speed limit was a miserly 90 km/hour even on the toll road… corresponding to what would be the equivalent to 130 km in France… bizarre ! Only twice did we see the carabinieri (the national gendarmes or military police… and a profession which is widely mocked by the Italians as they are treated as buffoons), one at a speed trap and another on an off ramp which we happened to use. At times, we actually got lost and I usually am a good map reader (and even AA can fend for herself)… but Italy must spend money elsewhere as the signposts are rare… in the roundabouts, there are no signs so all must be memorized on the sign 100 yards out in front (if there is one)… the gas stations did not take Visa so all was paid in cash…

Some regrets : once again, we believe that Vicky would have enjoyed this adventure (if she ever survived this text)… and maybe even my parents (but that is another long story).

Some destinations on our original planning never had out feet tread on their fertile soil : Arezzo, north of Cortona, supposedly a beautiful and rich Tuscan city known for its flourishing production and exportation of gold jewels… an entire day trip far to the east to visit Perugia, Lake Trasimeno and Castello di Reschio with the potential bifurcation to Assisi, the city of Saint Francis (now a majestic destination of Christian pilgrimage). Just too far away and no longer Tuscan but of Umbrian nature.

Rocking in Rostock ?

Errrrrrrr…. No… One can say that we were not “rocking” in Rostock for rocking can have two definitions : decimating all opposing teams in the Masters (over 30 years old) Division at the 2005 EUCC (European Ultimate Club Championships) by my team the Lizard Kings, or partying/dancing up a storm… unfortunately neither of these occurred.

Worse, I took notes almost every night and today (the Saturday after the tournament) I have no idea where the paper scrap disappeared to… so I will have to use my halfheimer’s memory.

As you know, outdoor ultimate frisbee is played seven on seven so in a Masters club which had only 24 members, we originally had 16 players sign up for this tournament which was to take place between Sunday July 3 to Saturday July 9. One of our principal handlers (or a backcourt guard in basketball) Scott, an American, injured his ankle the weekend before in an open tournament in Chinon (near Tours) playing for the LK so he had to drop out… since his trip was pre-paid, he came anyway (in from Poland but where he has been living for over a year with his girlfriend but working during the week in Bristol, UK) as sort of a “trainer” who helped out Emery our coach and quasi-player. Another player had to stay back at the last minute due to his eventual new job… leaving us with 14 players for a strenuous week-long tournament… funnily enough, most of the masters teams arrived with fewer than fourteen players (except for one other French team).

The Masters Division in Rostock was almost cancelled as two teams backed out in the prior month as the English and German (Wall City from Berlin) teams sneaked into the Open Division… as they wanted to have more competitive games… and in after thought, they were probably correct. Wall City finally ended up 22nd out of 32 teams… I did not even know under what name the English team played… so LK who was originally supposed to represent France was joined last January by two other French teams OUF from Tours and Friz Toi from Luzarches (one hour north of Paris)… of course these two teams did not have enough players over the age cap so they “recruited” other “veteran” players using an SOS over the French ultimate frisbee web link. Fortunately two other German teams Frisbee Family Pempelfort and the Farmers from Luneburg replaced Wall City. The final team was to be the formidable Red Lights (or today’s Masterdam from the Netherlands), a team created in 1984 and where the players have known each other for eons… to boot, they barely lost in the finals in a recent Belgian tournament to the # 1 French team (Ultimate Vibration)… so we were six merry bands of men (or mostly… we had one girl on our team… eventually costing us dearly and there were three women on Friz Toi but who had about 18 players… and one Amazonian woman on the Red Lights). There was no seeding in the Masters Division.

I took my half day off on the Friday preceding the tournament as I was able to go home and grab my bag, hop on the train, then the metro for the south of Paris where I was to meet the rest of the team (half which had arrived from the south and west of France… coming from Brittany, Le Mans, Lyon, Ile de Ré, etc) at about 3:30 AM. We had originally rented two vans and Europcar screwed up so badly that we did not even leave until 8 PM as we had to wait for one of the vans to arrive from Lyon !!! We spread the players evenly between the two vans (one a smoking one… and not only the tailpipe or cigarettes) and I took the “cleaner” one. We had a bit of problems leaving Paris due to the Friday night traffic (plus the vacation departures) and then cruised north for our overnight odyssey… according to mrmappy, it is about a ten hour drive but it took us over 13 hours (we had two drivers per van) due to a dinner stopover and the Paris delays. Sleeping in the seats was horrible for the health (and necks) so we found a way in the back as two guys slept on sleeping bags on the floor, two on the seat rows and one on the luggage in the back compartment. Despite having one of the seats, I slept like crap…

We arrived at our motel in Kritzmow, a few miles south of Rostock, before 10 AM… of course we saw little to none of the Belgian or West German countryside and East Germany was full of plains (non-agricultural ? ) and gigantic wind vanes. Believe it or not, the highways were in much better shape than in Western Germany (which had mega road work noticed on our way back). The hotel was rather chic as it seemed to have been renovated completely… players were divided into rooms of two and there were two “suites” with kitchens for up to four/five players (we literally took up most of the motel rooms). I was happy with my room of two… even though I changed mates often (except for extremely obese Emery who I had for about four nights).

Once again, without my notes, it is difficult… but I don’t think we did much that day… we had dinner in a Greek restaurant (the Xanthi) that night (below the hotel) where we eventually learned the sirtaki (Greek dance). We had dinner in the motel apartments for only two nights during the whole tournament…

That Sunday afternoon all the teams had their first match before the opening ceremony game which was to take place in the local stadium… all the other grass or artificial turf games were to take place all over Rostock in five different locales… but wow, do they have fields… probably dating back to when East Germany were “harvesting” anabolic steroid-stuffed athletes during the Stazi (secret police) years before the crumbling of the Wall. One of the sites with two fields was on a military base and if you did not have your player pass, you did not get access and they were very strict. Each match was to last 1hour 40 minutes or first team to 17 points. And we were to start against the French team OUF who had 12 players (need at least ten available members ready to play or else the team is forfeit) and rumors had it that half the team was already hobbling or had other physical handicaps. Well “foutaise” as you say in French or “rubbish” would be a good translation. We had visions of being in the final against the Red Lights thus our return trip planned for the following Sunday (with most of the finals occurring the following Saturday). We started off the game in the manner of most of our weekly games… in the hole and having to crawl out of it and mostly failing. If I remember correctly, we were down 9 - 3 at halftime and we just could not believe it… nothing went right and that was the theme of the entire week… bad or dropped passes, two cuts (or runs) in the same spot, bad defense, etc. I mean I could eventually have an excuse on defense with my age as at 41 galloping behind a 31 year old could be tough, but our collective team effort (average age being under 35) was a disaster… why ? we barely train together (I went only to two group practices in Tours), we have no clear offensive strategy (when we tried the only one everyone knew, it never worked anyway)… for a Masters team, we had two beginners (less than two years of experience) at the tournament which is not normal since Masters should mean experienced but our team President little Pierre Leleu was taking in all players interested. We finally ended up losing the game 17 - 12 as we tit for tatted points in the second half but it was all too late. In the first fifteen minutes of the game, we already had two injuries (leg-related) including bearded Bernard Prieto (Alex knows him) who came back five games later only to be knocked out permanently for the rest of the tournament… so we were already knocked down to 12 players. At the end of the game, another player (one of the beginners) had yet another injury… so being at 11 players, we had little breathing room.

We went to the stadium of the “official” opening game on a boiling day in the Open Division which was to be the fourth-ranked Ragnarok (the top Danish team meaning Doom of the Gods or “end of the cosmos” in Norse mythology) with their fiery red shirts and hellish emblem against the second-ranked French team (but only ranked 20th out of 32 teams) called the Jack’Suns from western France near Nantes. This was my first European Championships (several of my teammates had already been to other notorious frisbee events) and it was just amazing to see the quality of play and fantastic athletic shape of many of these teams. Ragnarok (about 18 players) was filled with guys who were tall, burly and incredibly fast (for their height) versus the versatile and technical but diminutive (almost elf-like in comparison) French team (only 14 players). It was a close game until 6 - 6 then the size and precision of the Danes started to pick apart the French defense and the Jacks eventually lost 17 - 8. If they were the fourth-ranked team, I definitely wanted to see the top three play at some point in the tournament !!

The following day (another beautiful and torrid day), we were to get in the rhythm of having two long games per day and the organizers were not lenient as we had three straight days of 9 AM games followed by either 1 PM or 3 PM slots. That morning we were to face the red-shirted Red Lights and after scoring the first point (a glimmer of hope… and that happened to be our only lead in any game until nearly the end of the tournament !! ), they calmly dissected us and ended up winning 17 - 4… no reasons to go into details (see above) as I will be repetitive. After two losses, we were then to go up against the unknown German teams and we had the afternoon match against Family… of course, we thought that all these teams were beatable (at least in our heads at the beginning of each match) but the Teutons conquered us 17 - 6 and at the end in the team huddle, they “politely” told us that the game “felt” much closer (funnily, in my opinion also).

The next day at 9 AM, we were to go up against the second French team for bottom bragging rights as they had lost their first three matches also. Also Pierre had “political” run-ins with the president of Friz Toi (also the prez of the French Ultimate Federation) as to the legitimacy of the LK team so we just had to win this one… this was to be the first of two horrible days as to weather as we did not see the sun for 48 hours and the rain was often a’pourin… do I have to repeat myself ? We were down 9 to 1 at halftime and our morale was down at the end of our sopping socks… we were able to muster some courage and clawed back to 9 to 8 then traded points to nearly the end when time ran out and we were still down 13 to 12… with the two point cap rule with the first team to 15 being the victor. They scored quickly to make it 14 to 12 and then by miracle we scored the next two points… the game was already getting out of hand due to bad calls, faults, etc and the good “spirit” which all would like to see in frisbee was tenuous as both teams did not want to be in the doghouse. Our miracle fizzled and they won 15 to 14… and our visions of being in the final (already long-doused) had led to a premonition of being last !! That afternoon, we had our last game in the first round against the Farmers which had lost all their games except against Friz Toi so once again, hope glimmered. Under rain and drizzle on an incredibly superb artificial turf, we were tied at 3, then they pulled far ahead then we were eventually tied at 9 before once again we broke down and lost 17 - 11… so a big goose egg after the first round. Our ensuing battle was to at least get out of the doghouse… the same day the Red Lights had beaten Farmers 17 - 4 and the German Family 17 - 6 while OUF had beaten Family 17 - 13.

As the second round started the next morning, we were in a funk… we were to meet all these strong teams and take another beating… while the whole time, dropped and imprecise passes were killing us. It was even embarrassing., and we were wondering why we were even there. I myself played not badly at all but left more time for the young rabbits to run around on our team. Our woman on the team was a handicap as she was lined up across another guy (most of the time), could not run, was stressed out whenever she had the frisbee (she dropped about 50%)… and… wanted to play too often… in my opinion. In the same pecking order, we started off against OUF who were just getting better throughout the tournament and we thought that they would be a shoe-in for the finals (we saw their game against the Red Lights and after being beaten badly in the beginning, they crawled back and eventually lost 16 - 11. We were getting clobbered in the first half again and like many other games, we traded points in the second half and lost even worse than in the first round (17 - 10). Our afternoon game against the Red Lights was unbelievably our best game of the tournament as we were actually up 4 to 2 and then tied at 6… and then they put on the gas to be up 9 to 6 at halftime… my only pride in that game was to have a few good plays in the first few points and the RL put on their best player to cover me for the rest of the game. Once again (is this getting repetitive once again ? ), we almost traded points in the second half and lost 17 - 13… at the end of the tournament, our team had racked up the most points in a single game against RL, one of the only few memorable stats.

The next day we had a 11 AM game versus the Family on another sunny day and after our “success” versus the Red Lights, we thought that we had a “ghost of a chance” but normalcy returned and we scored only one more goal than in the first round and lost 17 - 7. That afternoon was the showdown against Friz Toi and we were down to 10 players as further injuries rocked our team in the prior games… they were at least 16. One of our players even left in the middle of the game having been in disagreement with Emery about E’s player covering. But this was to be our game and we were ahead 9 to 3 at halftime !! We were not even playing that well but their youth and relative inexperience finally helped us. We even outscored them in the second half and ended up winning 17 - 7 (wow, did it feel good to be on the other end of that score) and on goal differential head to head, we were the clear winners to at least not be in the doghouse. All would have been for naught had they beaten the Farmers that morning (FT lost 15 - 14 with an opportunity to win that game). OUF had been crushed earlier in the day by RL 17 - 6 (their team was getting tired by lack of players… and we didn’t have that problem ? ) In their most important game against Family that afternoon for a step in the semi-finals, OUF lost (we were surprised) 17 - 10 propulsing the Family into the finals on Saturday morning with a three goal head-to-head lead versus OUF.

Our final game on Friday afternoon was almost cancelled against the Farmers as the tournament organizers were losing fields to owners who refused to have some of the rain-clogged green patches being eventually destroyed by the players’ cleats. RL even forfeited a game 17 - 0 to Farmers on Thursday as their game was cancelled and RL refused to have two games on Friday (before Saturday’s final). RL even asked Family to have the final Friday afternoon as RL’s best player had to leave Saturday morning for work in Malaysia. Family refused… and despite the player loss, RL took them to the cleaners in the final (we did not see it) 17 - 11, as their depth and experience was just too much… Family had recovered two more fresh players for the final few days and were over 14 players… and that with several players from RL staying until the wee hours of the morning (3 AM) at the Friday night party before their 10 AM final. One of the RL told me that it was OK to stay out and party late and to beat Family the next day, it was all “in the head”.

Back to the Farmers game, we wanted to at least win to separate us in the victory column from Friz Toi and the fact that they beat Friz by only one point helped us out psychologically. Psycho… what ? The Norman Bates killer instinct was not with us and we miserably lost 17 - 11 (the same score as before). OUF pinned down Friz 17 - 10 so each with one victory, we were humbly in fifth place… with no halo over our heads… throughout the week, we had 5 players injured out of the original 14 (but always at least 10 operational in each game), player bickering, hung heads, weak legs, etc… you can just imagine. Except for two games out of ten (against RL and FT), we were just not with it… the moral of the story ? Do not bring inexperienced players, do not accept women who do not have the umph (there are two women signed up on the team), show up with at least 16 healthy players (Alex will say between 20/24), and just plain concentrate. As I told a friend who plays for Ultimate Vibration when he asked me what change in strategy was needed for the second round, I answered “Strategy ? We need the team just to concentrate and catch and throw the frisbee correctly !”

Elsewhere in the tournament, I saw some matches that would amaze even some of the US teams… many of the teams complained in the Open Division as the first round of eight pools of four teams each knocked out already good teams into the second half of the tournament… the Jack’Suns had a brilliant middle of the tournament but then crumbled with their lack of size and player count and eventually beat Wall City on the final day to end in 22nd place. Even though several teams complained about the different divisions, in the end 3 of the top 4 seeds were in the semi-finals including Clapham (from England and ranked # 1 ), the Flying Angels Bern (FAB from Switzerland and # 3 ) and once again Ragnarok. With their weird system, Ragnarok was able to recover as in one of the pools in mid-week, they had two losses in three games… but the most amazing feat had to come from France’s top team (Ultimate Vibration) who was the last team in the semis after having had a chance in the “quarters” against # 2 ranked Sippoo Odd Stars from Finland. I did not see the game but UV won 17 - 14. I saw over half of the Ragnarok/UV semi-final and the French were just too small in size and lost 17 - 12, even though at halftime it was much closer.

The most amazing game was in the middle of the week which should eventually have been the final… top-ranked Clapham versus FAB… just fantastic all the way through and they were tied almost all the way through but Clapham won 17/14… they were eventually to meet again in the semis and I only saw the first half (with FAB leading by 9 to 7) as we had our final game. By hearsay, we heard that FAB at the end had six opportunities to win the game but eventually lost once again 17 - 14 (how is that possible ? ) FAB ended up beating UV 17 - 13 for third place… but kudos to UV as they only lost four games in the entire tournament… to Ragnarok, FAB, Finland’s Liquidisc and… Clapham in the middle of the week.

Out of the original 32 teams, the geographic club diversification across Europe was wide with over 15 countries represented : 6 teams from the UK, 5 from Germany, 5 from Finland (with disappointing final tallies with 6th - Sippoo, 14th - Helsinki Ultimate, 15th - Liquidisc, 26th - Discus, etc… I thought that with their reputations, they would be higher in the rankings…. I include the team names for Alex’ sake), two from Switzerland, France, Russia (28th and 29th) and the Czech Republic (a guy who played with us in Bali several years ago - he wasn’t that good - played with Four Fingers and ended in an incredible 9th place), and one team from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Lithuania and Sweden (represented by Viksjofors IF from the small town of Edsbyn located in the northern forests, right Uncle Lars ? - who ended third in this year’s Swedish Championships - seeded 18th and ending 19th). The surprisingly small contingent from Sweden was surprising always known as a European powerhouse. Last year’s winners over Clapham 19 - 16, Skogshyddan did not return this year rumors having said that due to several key injuries, they did not want to chance a loss in this year’s championships… now is that bogus or what ?

There was a Trading Night in the center of Rostock, an event where team members trade (or sell) T-shirts, sweats, frisbees, team socks, underwear, or whatever on Wednesday night. We went and the LK sold the entire imported stock of team frisbees (we could not trade or sell our two different hued custom-made Gaia-fabricated team shirts with the lizard logo). There was a magician who pulled off some fun stunts with his woman assistant otherwise it was mostly an imbibing fest with four bars, a VJ (video jockey) with two screens… we did not hang out that long…

The night before most of the finals, there was the Goodbye Party at a far away beach in which you either hopped on a ferry boat (especially for the tournament) or had to drive for about 30 minutes. We took the last boat at about 9:15 PM and there was a live band (Soultrain) with two guys posing as the Blues Brothers and two accompanying nuns… the bar/kiosks on the beach were filled with German Rostocker Pils beers (several of the German brands were definitely not tasty), vodka Red Bulls (RB being a powerful energy drink actually outlawed in France), etc. The first LK wave (including me) returned to our van at the port on special public buses which were packed… we were in bed at 2:30 AM. The second round ended up in the paddock after 4 AM and as the buses ran out, people were shepherded into expensive taxis. There were “casualties” even early in the night as several players (“girls” and “boys”) drank too much and ended praying to the ivory throne or riding the porcelain bus (or rainbow yawning ? ) without making it to the local “john”.

Our only other highlight was on Tuesday afternoon, one of the fields we played on was right next to the beach so we were able to swim (only four of us) as part of a nude (or partially) beach… always a pleasure since my last foray on the southern coast of France (near St Tropez) over ten years ago… two of the players joined in the fun and bathed with the family jewels en plein air… the girl on our team felt a bit embarrassed and left for a snack at the snack kiosk… we returned there after our last game against the Farmers…

But back to frisbee (finals), I already mentioned the final score for the Masters Division. On Friday night before the official tournament party, the Co-ed final (at least three women on the field at all times) was to take place and for the first time in history, a French team was represented. The Friselis (# 3 team in France and ranked # 4) were shored up by some very good French women players and they went undefeated until the final as did the other contestant UFO (# 3) from Finland in two pools of sixteen teams in total. Using the same time and first to 17 (unless capped… when it becomes complicated), everyone was expecting an exciting and good game… partially under drizzle while the crowded stadium (we were protected by the overhanging roof), we watched what turned out to be the most exciting of the four finals… the two teams traded points up to 11 and then UFO broke ahead 15 to 11… the crowd was almost packing their bags and getting their beer paunches ready for the party when Friselis came storming back to tie it up at 15… then they were eventually tied at 17 when time ran out meaning that the first team to win would have to go to 19 by at least two points or to the maximum of 21 points (complicated, non ? ) I don’t remember which of the two teams had most of the point advantage but the game was won 21 to 20 by… the Friselis !! We saw several guy Friselis (Alex, Greg who you have met is their leader) who showed up for the party with shaved heads due to prior promises or wagers.

The next day, we showed up at 11 AM at the same stadium for the women’s finals between UK’s perennial powerhouse Bliss (ranked # 1) and Germany’s # 4 Jinx (they had a woman about 7 feet tall who looked like a man… maybe an offspring from those Stazi-controlled beefed-up athletes of the past) in also two pools of eight teams each. The previous day I had seen the end of the semi-finals between Bliss and E6 (ranked 3rd) from Sweden… and what a downer for E6. They were leading 16 to 15 and eventually lost 17 to 16 with the turnover of the century as at 16 - 16, one of the handlers bungled a pass and threw it away in front of her teammate as she didn’t move… just incredible !! The final was underway and it was a tough fight at the beginning… I left to get food while Jinx was up 13 to 11 and the food line was a bit long… and as I was nearing the stand, I heard final clapping (literally 10 minutes later) and upon return saw that Jinx had won 17 - 11… what a crush !!

All were psyched for the men’s final, as the impressive Clapham were to go face to face with the monstrous rogues of Ragnarok. Funnily enough, Clapham seemed to have a few American key players… and showed up with 19 for the tournament. Only the captain got injured (shoulder) in the middle of the week and could not play for the rest of the tournament but he was out on the field (arm in sling) leading the impressive warm up for the team. The game started off well (with actually quite a few turnovers… unheard of in the World Championships, n’est-ce pas Alex ? ) and we were all looking forward to a battle. My teammates and I bet a euro each on the final score and the number of hucks (or long powerful throws down the field) in case of a tie on the score and I voted Clapham as a winner by 18 to 16. Well, the teams were tied at 9 near halftime but then the efficiency and tactics of Clapham went under cruise control and they led 16 to 11. All were expecting the revival of Ragnarok à la co-ed game and they squirmed back 16 to 13. I lost my bet as Clapham won 17 - 13 but at least I was not far off in the number of hucks despite the powerful wind at times (but a beautiful day) as I guessed 23 and there were 21 in all. Clapham eventually won the Open Spirit of the Game Award, rare for the champion as many winners try to pull out all stops to win, thus breaching that fine line of fair play (but according to the Award speech, the Clapham captain announced with pride that fair play… besides good and tough field play… was their benchmark. Kudos !! We ourselves had given Farmers the best score over the tournament and they eventually won the Masters Spirit and as second and third were announced, clearly LK was not in there… most likely having received a crushing grade from Friz Toi. Well that was the end of the tournament… fun was not had by all but it was an enriching experience… we left the next morning and took over ten hours to get back to Paris as we whipped through Germany (the highways avoided most of the towns and cities), Belgium and northern France with two gas pit-stops. For those of you interested in more details, the website is http://www.eucc2005.org/ .

In conclusion, Pierre, our President, had illusions of grandeur as to the outcome of the LK in the tournament… but as the “mierda” hits the fan, reality strikes… as some of you know, the World Championships will be held in Perth, Australia in November 2006… and Pierre would like to go… normally there will be a Masters tournament in France in October of this year as to who would eventually represent France. But I know the conclusion already.. we have the potential to have a stronger team in October but even if OUF wins, half of their team member at 30 years old will be ineligible for Perth play as the playing age will be jumping next year… anyway France will have problems getting any Masters to go as the budget will be outrageous (people will be staying much more than a week due to the distance), there is no school vacation in November as many of the veterans are Dads… so they will have to muster up any person who can afford it and get the time off… only to be destroyed by the global powerhouses… oh, what fun !!!