Venice (Thursday 16 May)

We wake to a rainy morning; Venice is experiencing a flood, with water across many of the footpaths along the canals.  We learn later that it is quite unexpected, and that the usual warning system for floods has not abounded.

The canal near our apartment on Thursday morning

In Venice, it doesn’t take much for the water and the land to become quite confused

We want to explore the Jewish quarter, which is near (east of) our apartment.  However, some of the footpaths are impassable because of the flood, and the rain is getting heavier.  Walking along our local canal, we’re greeted by a very friendly barber standing at the door of his shop; he tells us that the canal-side footpath is impassable a little further along, and that the right detour is in a bit, along a bit and out again – by chance, through the Jewish quarter.   He also shows us the mark on his wall for a flood depth a couple of years ago – about half a metre above this flood, leaving his floor under 40 cm of water.

We follow his advice, change plans, and head for a nearby supermarket to get a few essentials.  Finding one has been tricky – they are not on every corner – but Hilary has located one with Pocket Earth (the iPhone app that has become an indispensible navigation tool to the point that we now call it the WPE, Wonderful Pocket Earth).   On the evidence of the supermarket we’ve found, they’re both well hidden and tiny.  This one is up a long, dark alleyway only a metre wide, and is given away by a procession of people passing up and down the alley with small shopping trolleys.  On reflection it’s clear why the supermarkets are small and (presumably) well spaced across the city: everything has to be carried home by hand or in a hand-wheeled cart.  Filling the car with a month’s worth of food is not an option.

We have a lunch of bread, tomato and cheese at the apartment.  In the afternoon (in the rain and through flooded streets and canals) we take a vaporetto to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum on the Grand Canal near San Marco. It’s a spectacular collection of 20^th century art – Picasso, Max Ernst, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, Jean Arp, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock, and many others – collected by Peggy Guggenheim throughout her life.  She spent the last 30 years of that long and influential life here, in this palatial house in Venice that is now her gallery.

For dinner we go to the great local trattoria we’d enjoyed 5 years ago, and had found again on Tuesday.  It’s called Al Nono Risorto.

In the Peggy Guggenheim Museum

Art and life in the Peggy Guggenheim Museum

Venice (Wednesday 15 May)

For our first full day in Venice I wake with a cold and sinus congestion.  By mid-morning I feel good enough to venture out, into a fine day.  The first stop is at a pharmacy on our local canal, to buy some day-night cold tablets.  I take a day tablet immediately and feel a good deal better soon, thanks to the magic of pseudoephedrine.

We take a vaporetto from Ferrovia to Rialto, sit on the side of the Grand Canal, drink cappuchino, and watch the water traffic pass by:  life is good.

The passing traffic near the Rialto Bridge

We return to the apartment for a bread-and-cheese lunch.  After some travel-housekeeping (blog posts, washing clothese) we take a vaporetto in the afternoon along the Grand Canal to San Marco, so that Hilary can find a shop that still makes leather Venetian masks.  We find the shop successfully.  The owner/maker is old and gruff, a craftsman who is well past being a spectacle for tourists.  Hilary watches closely as he applies papier-maché layers to a mask in a mould, while a young crowd enters the shop to play with a few masks and then leave.  At my urging, Hilary buys a beautiful, high-quality mask; the owner thaws out somewhat during the transaction.

The Mask Shop

Around 7 pm, we go to Giardini, in the southeast part of island, and walk through gardens to San Pietro on the eastern tip.  Here there are almost no tourists.  The houses seem to be occupied by local residents; one house has a gondola rowlock as its doorknocker.  The tower of the church of San Pietro is leaning like the Tower of Pisa.  A youth group is meeting outside the church.

Canals and lanes near San Pietro

Doorways near San Pietro

The vaporetto ride home from San Pietro

Verona, Venice (Tuesday 14 May)

On our second morning in Verona (and last for this trip) the main plan is to see inside the Arena before catching the train to Venice.  After checking out of our luxurious hotel (it’s been a real treat!) we head for the Arena to get entrance tickets soon after opening.  From inside it’s just as awesome as from the outside:  a huge stadium big enough for large events, now fitted with a giant stage and seating for performances.  We take it in from bottom to top, with a few other people and school groups – probably several hundred people, but in that vast space the crowd feels thin.

This was all built back around AD 30, out of huge blocks of marble that were quarried, transported, shaped and placed entirely by the muscle power, presumably supplied mainly by slave labour.  Also striking is the way that it’s been maintained and preserved: it looks as solid as rock (in fact, thousands of rocks forming tiered seating, stairways, doorways and Roman arches).  There must be an entire engineering discipline in Italy devoted to the preservation and structural integrity of ancient buildings.

The Arena,looking toward the stage

The Arena, looking back the other way toward the remaining piece of the outer wall

Up close, the remaining piece of the outer wall is majestic

The doorways in the passages under the Arena, with lintels made from massive blocks of stone

We have a little time left before the train, so we see Castelvecchio, a castle and fortification on the northern loop of the river, dating back to around the 14^th century.  It’s now a museum.  We don’t go inside but instead look at some sculptures in the courtyard and at the associated bridge across the river.

The courtyard at Castelvecchio

The wall at the end of the courtyard, taken for Tim in homage to his collection of Wall Photos at cutflat.net

On the Castelvecchio Bridge

We take the train to Venice in the early afternoon, and meet our AirBnB host (Claudio) at the station.  We are sharing a 2-bedroom apartment with another Australian, a nice young woman from Sydney, who is waiting with Claudio.  He shows us all to the apartment on the northwest corner of the island, about 500 m north of the station.

The canal near our AirBnB apartment (we are north of Ferrovia, looking southeast)

We go out into Venice in the late afternoon, first buying 72-hour cards for use of the vaporettos, the ferries that provide the “bus” services along the main canals.  With these we take a vaporetto from Ferrovia (the train station) to San Marco, via the southern rim of the island (with a little confusion because Hilary had wanted to go via the Grand Canal, but we board the wrong boat).

We’d been to Venice once before, five years ago, for just two days.  This return visit is because we loved it so much, like the millions of others who come here.  How can you not love a city built on water?  Everything floats, from the palaces and cathedrals along the Grand Canal to tiny backwaters woven with innumerable narrow lanes and bridges.

Riding the vaporetto in the evening through a floating city

We pay brief and only fleeting homage to the iconic Venice tourist sites, the San Marco Cathedral and St Mark’s Square with its tourist restaurants, each with a quintet to serenade the diners with smaltzy standard tunes – perhaps with the same weary musicians as we saw 5 years ago!

We walk to Rialto Bridge and find the B&B where we stayed 5 years ago, a short but winding walk through laneways from the San Silvestro vaporetto quay on the Grand Canal.  It appears to be a B&B no longer.  We also find the very nice nearby trattoria around the corner, a recommendation from our B&B host back then – it’s a local restaurant rather than a tourist one, and is still going strong.

We have dinner at a randomly picked place in the same area – baked sea bass with vegetables – very nice and not too expensive, to our surprise.  Near 11 pm we take a crowded vaporetto from San Silvestro back to our AirBnB apartment near Ferrovia.

The Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge, in fading evening light

Verona (Monday 13 May)

The first destination for the morning is the Arena.  We walk around the outside, marvelling at the solidity of this structure that has lasted 2000 years and is still going strong: the inner walls and seating are all intact or have been well restored, but only a small section of the outer walls and arches still stands (the rest fell down in a great earthquake in the 12^th century, the stones then being used for buildings throughout mediaeval Verona).  Evidently it held 30,000 people in Roman times, an MCG of its day, and it is one the best reserved Roman amphitheatres anywhere.  One of the great things about the Arena is that it continues to be in active use for opera and some rock concerts, so it’s a living venue as well as an ancient monument.   We see huge sets for the first production of the opera season being arranged outside, for lifting by crane into the Arena.

A giant gladiator, 5 metres tall, awaits his turn in the Arena – as a silent participant in an opera

The massed infantry await their cue

In the late morning we leave the Arena and walk up Via Mazzini (the main shopping area), spiralling toward Casa Guilietta (Juliet’s balcony) as if drawn by magnetic forces.   I confess that that I had actively wanted to avoid Casa Guilietta, and that Hilary was the (magnetic) driving force for seeing it.  How wrong I was!  Casa Guilietta is a remarkable phenomenon.  It was a brilliant 1936 creation by the tourist authority in Verona, who randomly picked a plausible balcony to be the location for the balcony scene in “Romeo and Juliet”.  It’s now become a shrine to modern teenage (and other) romance – every available wall is covered in graffiti, post-it love notes, and hearts moulded from chewing gum.  On every available fence and railing there are padlocks with love messages; in fact you don’t need to bring your own because the extensively stocked shop carries a large range padlocks at all price points and sizes.  You can have items of clothing (available for purchase) embroidered by machine, while you watch, with any love message you choose.  The courtyard below the balcony is full to brimming with a crowd of every age and race.  There is quite a queue to stand beside Juliet’s statue and be photographed rubbing her highly polished right breast, an action which is supposed to bring you a new lover.

Juliet’s balcony (that’s it, just above and left of centre)

Messages of love can be sent with any available substance as a base

The passageway serves as entrance, exit and graffiti wall

On the wall your message is forever, but may not be readable for long

The security team is well and truly done with all this

We tear ourselves away from this place of wonder and return to Piazza Erbe, the nearest big square and a major hub for tourist restaurants.  Before choosing one of them to supply us with lunch, we walk through one or two of the nearby squares including one with a large statue of Dante.  He had been offered protection in Verona in the 14^th century, when inter-city warfare was a habitual state of being.

Touching the sun

After lunch we return to the hotel, before setting out again in mid-afternoon.  The rough plan is to walk around the city following the River Arige, which surrounds the old city on east, north and west – part of the fortifications that would have been in frequent use in mediaeval times as city-states fought each other.  We cross the river to the east at Ponte Nuovo, climb the hill that is the site for the Teatro Romana – great views of the city – pass the church of San Giorgio at the northernmost point of the river’s loop around the city, and cross back into the old town at Ponte Garibaldi.  It’s an open, vibrant city with a great feel to it.

The Arige, from the Teatro Romano

We end up again for dinner at Piazza Erbe.  The waiters are gruff and have seen too many tourists:  one of them lights the candle on our table, saying “more romantic!” in a curt and unromantic manner – he is clearly well over all this by now.  I manage to thaw out the other waiter a little by asking him the result of last night’s soccer match between AC Milan and Roma; it was a 0-0 draw, but he’s happy to tell us “I follow AC Milan” and to talk about their recent misfortunes.  We leave for the hotel feeling that it’s been a pleasant meal.

Omegna, Verona (Sunday 12 May)

We have a morning in Omegna before journeys back to Lausanne (Tim and Tanya) and on to Verona (Hilary and Michael).  In warm sunshine we walk to Monte Zuomo, a small hill about 1.5 km southwest of Omegna.  It’s a short climb (200 m) and gives good views of the town and the lake.

Mamma very kindly drives us to the station, bringing her son to help with the transport by providing a second car!  The hospitality has been wonderful.

We wait on the platform at the small station in Omegna for an afternoon train to Domodossola – but just before it’s due, there’s an announcement that the train has been cancelled because of a strike.  The next option is a train to Novarra, about 50 km south.  This is good for H&M because it will allow a connection to Milano and then to Verona, but not so good for T&T because they’re going in the wrong direction.  We all take the train to Novarra anyway.  There, T&T board a train for Domodossala – but it fails to leave and eventually an announcement is made that it has also been cancelled because of the strike!  In some chaos, H&M take a train to Milano, leaving T&T in Novarra.  We (H&M) get a train on to Verona easily, arriving around 7 pm.  We hear later that T&T had to travel on to Milano on a later train, from where they eventually managed to get a crowded train to Brig, finally making it home to Lausanne around 11 pm.

Waiting at Omegna for a train that never arrived

Thanks to the Italian railways, this all makes for a chaotic end to what has otherwise been a lovely weekend away for all four of us.

In Verona, we have no accommodation booked.  We set off from the station towards the city centre, and soon find a few hotels – we opt for a four-star Best Western hotel on Corsa Porta Nuova, because it has wifi and breakfast as part of the deal (although it’s expensive).

We walk into the Old City for dinner, past the Arena – the Roman amphitheatre, still used now for major opera productions in the summer opera season.  It’s truly impressive!  The outer walls have gone except for one section, but the inner walls and seating are intact.

Verona feels like a graceful, lively, spacious city.

First glimpse of the Arena in Verona

Omegna (Saturday 11 May)

After further exploration of Omegna in the morning, the main activity for the day is a boat trip to Orta San Giulio, a lakeside town to the south. The first stop is Isola San Giulio, a small island near the mainland town.   The island is densely built with a Benedictine monastery and nunnery.  It’s also a tourist magnet, and today is crowded with tour groups from all over Europe. Despite the crowds, the island is beautiful.  There is a small heavily decorated church with relics of San Giulio in the crypt surrounded by hundreds of candles.

We take a short boat ride back to Orta San Giulio on the mainland.  It’s the tourist hub of the district and also looks to be a place of lavish homes along the lake shore, with well tended gardens.  We wander the picturesque laneways and take photos, before having gelati on the waterfront and catching the evening ferry back to Omegna.

Isola San Giulio

Tim capturing fine detail on Isola San Giulio

An approximate version of what Tim is photographing

 

Omegna (Friday 10 May)

All of us (Tim, Tanya, Hilary, Michael) set off for Omegna by train, via Brig in Switzerland and Domodossola in the Italian alps.  On the journey I talk with Tanya about the geology of this area – the valley north of Omegna is where she collected field samples for her PhD, because here a complete 30-km vertical section of the crust has been turned on its side and can be sampled as if from top to bottom.  We also talk about women in science, in the context of the AAS disaster in electing no women this year; Tanya feels strongly about it.

We finally arrive at Omegna around 1.30 pm, to be met at the station by the mother of our AirBnB host.  Mamma is a lovely, voluble Italian woman with no English, and Tanya shows that she speaks very good Italian, all self-taught! The accommodation is great, an old spacious 3-roon apartment right on the waterfront of the lake at its far northern end.

We walk around Omegna in the afternoon.  It’s not a tourist town, despite being picturesquely situated on the northern point of Laker Orta; surprisingly, the town is a base for light industry, making kitchenware.

Three of the travelling party in Domodossola, en route to Omegna

Lausanne (8, 9 May)

Being the proud possessors of Eurail passes and able to cross countries by rail any time we feel like it, we’ve decided to return to Lausanne on Wednesday 8 May to see Tim and Tanya, as they have a public holiday on Thursday and we can all make a trip together over an extended weekend.  The destination isn’t decided yet.

We take 3 trains in a scheduled 10 hours on Wednesday to get from the Amalfi Coast to Lausanne.  The trip is smooth except for the minor hiccup of a missed connection in Milano because the incoming train is ½ hour late.  We finally get to Lausanne at 10.45 pm.

It’s really good to see our wonderful Tim and Tanya and to return to their Lausanne apartment, which by now feels like a home away from home.  Over a leisurely breakfast on Thursday morning we decide to go to Omegna, at the north end of Lake Orta in northern Italy, for Friday and Saturday nights.

Walk of the Gods (Tuesday 7 May)

It’s THE walk to do on the Amalfi Coast, recommended by all in glowing terms.  We really want to do it.  Giuseppe has given us bus timetables to Bomerano (the start) and from Positano (the finish) back to Ravello.   He tells us that it takes about 4.5 hours.  We don’t have a good paper map, but the ever-reliable Pocket Earth has “Sentiero Degli Dei” marked, so navigation should be no problem.  The bus trip to Bomerano is smooth, climbing to 600 metres.  We set out at 11.15 am.  There are a number of other walkers but the trail is far from crowded.

It’s apparent after only a few minutes why it’s THE walk on the Amalfi Coast.  We’re roughly following the 600 metre contour, with the textured landscape falling steeply below us to the coast, and rising above into clouds that wreath the peaks a few hundred metres further up.  The path winds across deep ravines with  sheer cliffs.  There are many caves, some with stone and wood walls and doors for past (and maybe present) use as dwellings.  A donkey with a foal grazes in a small enclosure.  Hawks hover on the wind both above and below us.

The space is immense.  Perhaps it’s called the Walk of the Gods because it offers a God’s-eye view of the world below, around and above.  Gods must see the world like this, lords of all they survey.  Unlike us, they could presumably waft wherever they want; but if I was a God and not a mere mortal I’d do this walk often, even with my Godly powers of flight.

After about an hour the breathtaking spectacle takes yet more breath from us, as we round a corner and see the entire coast westward for twenty kilometres to Capri, from our high vantage.  All we can do is drink it in and feel privileged.

Although the trail stays at roughly 600 metres, there is a lot of ascent, descent and looping into ravines and around headlands – also, of course, stopping for views and photos.  It takes a couple of hours to cover a straight-line three kilometres on the map.  Around 1.30 pm we reach the little village of Nocelle and settle in a small trattoria for lunch.  It’s built into the hillside, and we have a meal of bread, roast vegetables, cheese and antipasti with the best view of any restaurant we’ve ever experienced.  The olives, especially, are delicious.

After lunch we continue on the descent to Positano, now mainly walking along Nocelle road.   Drivers seem to be used to sharing the winding, narrow road with walkers, but we’re still very watchful!  We approach Positano through narrow lanes at the top of the town, finally reaching the waterfront around 3.45 pm. Positano is quite touristic near the water, like Amalfi (making us glad to be staying in Ravello).  We take the ferry back to Amalfi (as recommended by a guide we’d met on the walk) – this gives fantastic views of the coast from the water – and then the bus back to reach Ravello by early evening.

Near the start of the Walk of the Gods

A third of the way into the walk you round a headland and see this – pixels cannot do it justice

The path of the Gods, looking east (opposite to our direction)

The view from our little cafe at lunch

Descending into Positano

The coast from the Positano-Amalfi boat, after the Walk of the Gods

Ravello (Monday 6 May)

Today we were thinking about doing the Walk of the Gods, the iconic walk of the Amalfi coast, but the cloud is low and there’s a bit of drizzle in the early morning, and Giuseppe advises against it.  We opt to defer the walk to tomorrow, and spend the day around Ravello.

We spend much of the afternoon exploring the Villa Cimbrone, an extensive garden estate on the buttress overlooking the sea at the south end of the ridge on which Ravello sits.  This estate was rescued from disrepair around 1900 by an Englishman, Lord Grimthorpe, who bought it and restored it under the guidance of Nicola Mansi from Ravello.  It became a favourite place for many European (especially English) writers and composers, particularly the Bloomsbury circle, which is part of the reason we’d like to go there.

The gardens are indeed extensive and wonderful.  They are laid out in a mix of English and Italian styles with formal rose gardens, long trellised avenues and grottoes.  There are many statues, including a Ceres, a bronze David by Donatello and a statue of Eve in a secluded grotto – she is protected by a perspex sheet, perhaps because people are too fond of throwing little stones at her.

What really takes our breath away is the view of the Amalfi coast and mountains from the buttress.  We ’re standing at the crest of a cliff, dropping sheer for maybe two hundred metres to the slopes below.  The space around us is both vast in every direction – around, down and up – and also finely textured: there are fractal patterns everywhere, in terraces, lemon orchards, houses, churches, towns, paths, roads, the convoluted coastline, and a rough and rugged skyline.  We spend several hours at Cimbrone, entranced not only by the spectacle but also by the sense of place and history: it’s easy to hear the Bloomsbury circle arguing and flirting with each other in the rose garden.

Dinner is at the Trattoria Pirreria Cumpa Cosimo, a great restaurant near the ceramics place where we bought several pieces.  The food is excellent and reasonably priced.  It’s nearly full, and the matron circulates among the guests.  Not surprisingly, the place has been well patronised by famous people (there’s a list on the wall).

Here are four views from the tip of the buttress of Villa Cimbrone:

From the buttress of Villa Cimbrone: looking southeast

From the buttress of Villa Cimbrone: looking downward to the south

From the buttress of Villa Cimbrone: looking southwest

From the buttress of Villa Cimbrone: looking west

 

Eve in her grotto at Villa Cimbrone, behind a protective sheet of perspex

 

Evening sky over the Amalfi Coast, from Ravello