Nov 2nd, Cute Baby Red Panda

11/2     Saturday

We visit to the zoo, where the animals are enjoying the cool fall air. The new baby Red Panda is bouncing all over his patient but beleaguered mother Red Panda. He is impossibly cute, like a cartoon or fluffy toy come to life. He stumbles adorably as he trots around the habitat. He nearly brings his audience to tears when he pounces on his mother’s tail and bites at it like some pretend prey. He rolls on his back and shows his little white belly with his paws patting at the air. We can’t stop watching him, and only tear ourselves away because we have to get home before dark.

1 Video Included

Cute Baby Red Panda

Oct 29th, Back Home

Bank home!
            We feel a little disorganized and disoriented, but happy to be back. We’ll take our time getting everything put away, picking up our routines, and settling in.
            We can take a moment to think about some of the experiences that were unexpected in small ways, things that make you feel the differences in being home in the USA, or away. For instance, it was impossible to find zip-lock plastic bags! We had a supply with us, for carrying liquids or small toiletries, but when we wanted some, we looked high and low in grocery stores, five-and-dime stores, hardware stores, everywhere and anywhere, with no luck.
            The types of medications that are available are confusing. Acetaminophen, or Tylenol, isn’t sold in most of Europe as far as we could tell. A person needs a prescription for simple hydrocortisone cream. As we packed, I felt a little OCD for bringing a whole sack of our usual vitamins, with extra calcium and vitamin D, but I could have used even more. When we ran out, we found out that simple multivitamins cost about $1 each, or more than thirty dollars for a month’s supply. The pharmacies are much more like holistic medicine centers, with all kinds of homeopathic remedies and herbal supplements. They also sell lots of high-end skin care products. But typically, if you need any kind of medicine, even just cough syrup or aspirin, you have to ask the pharmacist. These things are not available on the shelves for self-service.
            It was fun to see dogs showing up in unusual (for us) places. Chihuahuas in shoulder bags, hounds on the bus, a terrier sleeping under a café table. Usually dogs were welcome pretty much everywhere, with muzzles and leashes required in most cases. The dogs were all well-behaved, too, something we couldn’t say for many of the dogs we encounter on our hikes in the States. Not that we blame the dogs.
            The apartments we stayed in, mostly in Italy, were secured like bank vaults with steel doors, quadruple-lock bolts, steel braces and locked gates. It certainly felt secure, but also made us think about what was the need behind the hyper security.
            Almost all of the restaurant menus would include a vegetarian option, although that was occasionally ham and cheese.
            When we started planning our trip, we felt that we’d be in an environment different from what we’ve experienced before not so much because we’d be in new countries, but because we’ve never spent as much time travelling through major cities. We’re in the national capitals, not the backcountry. So much of the travel advise one encounters emphasizes the big-city dangers of scam artists, pick-pockets, kidnappers, untrustworthy cab drivers, dangerous side streets, bogus offers for rooms or tours, gangs of gypsy thieves, children begging while they steal your wallet, political unrest erupting into riots, anger towards Americans in general. We experienced exactly none of it.
            The people we met were, in every case, delighted to learn that we were Americans, and so pleased that we were taking a trip through their country. We saw Roma people many times, usually with several children with them. Sometimes they were selling small items, or begging, or working, but they were never harassing or threatening to anyone. We walked all over the cities we stayed in, many times off the main streets, sometimes into the less affluent or less populated parts of the city (although we were never lost because Bob has his maps, of course.) If anyone approached us, it was to inquire if we needed directions. On a crowded metro train, a stranger tapped Bob on the shoulder and advised him to keep his bag in front of him where he could keep it secure.
            Often, people at home would express concern about us going into Eastern Europe, especially Bosnia and Serbia, since the war seems so current. We didn’t have much more information about those countries beyond the news of their awful wars. We found the cities to be modern, safe, and full of interesting and cosmopolitan people. The history of the region is complex and palpable, from the Middle Ages to the present. There are unresolved issues there, well beyond the scope of our experience, but, again, we were welcomed warmly and treated with great hospitality in every encounter.

Oct 28th, Frankfurt to USA

10/28   Monday
            Heading home! Our flight is at noon, plenty of time to get up and out. No issues as we get our train to the airport and work our way through security. Our seats on the plane are pretty comfortable, just two together, and the plane is maybe half full. Each seat has its own video, so we can watch movies or tv or listen to music. So everything is pretty quiet for the next eight hours.
            We arrive at Philadelphia with five hours to wait for our flight home. We almost need five hours to get through customs and security again! Several international flights seem to have landed together, and the place is very crowded. We’re making our way through the queue when an adorable little ICE beagle comes up to Bob & sits, happily pawing at his tote bag. Hmmm. “Any fruit Sir?” Fortunately Bob had declared his bananas and ham sandwich, so we are merely diverted to the Agriculture lane, where everything is mercilessly discarded. Good Dog!
            Getting through the scanners causes all sorts of anxiety for people trying to make a connecting flight. We let a family with two babies go ahead of us, setting off a loud stream of prayers from a woman behind us. Apparently God will make sure she gets on her plane.
            After our flight in darkness, we arrive safely home from our long trip. My mother, who has been waiting for this day the whole time, is anxiously waiting for us to deplane. She greets us with relief and a hug and off we go.

Oct 27th, Frankfurt

10/27   Sunday
            We have a relaxing catching-up sort of day. Bob scouts out the train station and airport layout to make sure we have everything figured out for departure tomorrow while I stay in the hotel and work on this journal. The weather is very changeable, almost sunny, then almost stormy.
            We don’t get out until late afternoon, and by then it’s a beautiful fall evening, with a light breeze over the Main River, and clouds picking up the pinks and purples of the setting sun. We walk along the riverfront park, with all the others out enjoying their Sunday. There was a big marathon in the city today, so people with finishing medals and running tights are all around. We find a little stone storefront selling coffees and beers, so we stop for a couple nice weissibers and sit at a picnic table to watch the river for a while. A tugboat cruises slowly by, blasting some heavy metal hair band music for all to enjoy. Can’t place the band though, not Guns n Roses, maybe Poison or White Snake.
            We continue on to our restaurant, Dem Germalten Haus, for dinner. The place is full of locals watching a soccer game, but we find a table in one of the back rooms, really cozy. The whole restaurant is done in rustic maple wood, full of ruddy faced, white haired Germans, with lots of tables full of young people too, and it’s a big place. The waiter is working his “Mad Waiter” shtick, and says “Eight o’clock, I need the table! Eight!” But it’s only six, so we have plenty of time. We order our pork chops and applewine, and we are set for the evening.

1 Video Included

Frankfurt

Oct 26th, Milan to Frankfurt

10/26   Saturday
            We're taking the bus from Milan to Frankfort today. The bus comes into the Milan station about a half hour late, and we’re off!
            We have two of the jolliest drivers. They seem to be Russian, or of some similar nationality, playing accordion folk music on the radio and conversing in a Slavic-sounding language. They are chattering non-stop the whole day, giggling and hee-hee-ing like a couple of junior high schoolgirls. Honestly, they hardly take a rest to breathe.
            They manage to keep their humor when we get stopped at the Italian border. We thought that the EU status meant that border checks were unnecessary, but this is not the case. A customs agent comes on board, collecting our passports. One poor sap acknowledges that he has no passport at all. He is from Mali. The agent takes him off the bus and orders his luggage off too. They join several other agents who seem to be operating out of the trunks of a couple cars parked to the side. Quite a conference ensues. Another woman is eventually called off the bus as well. This conferencing all takes at least an hour, faxing and emailing and phone calling. Finally, one agent comes back with our passports and lets us go, minus a few fellow travelers. The bus drivers have an absolute party going over the episode like two kids caught playing hooky, reliving their ordeal over smokes in the boys’ room.
            The drive through Switzerland is breathtaking. We pass narrow lakes bordered by incredibly steep mountains, where people have cut farms and vineyards into the nearly vertical hillsides. There are clusters of neat villages, people sailing on the lakes, cows and sheep in the green pastures, rocky peaks along the horizon, trees burnished red and orange with fall colors, everything so idyllic it seems staged for a portrait.
            In Zurich, we have another delay as we sit in traffic for no good reason, spending an hour to go the few blocks through the city to the bus station, where no one seems to get on or off. The city seems nice enough, though.
            We come into Frankfort at 11:30 PM, in the rain, after leaving our apartment in Milan at 7:30 AM. Our hotel is right across the street, a clean, quiet place that we stayed in last May. We have a little déjà vu coming into our room. The weather is almost as we left it, cool and drizzly, with the same view out of our window. Are we starting over?

1 Video Included

Milan to Frankfurt

Oct 25th, Milan Brera Arts

10/25   Friday
            Today, we’re going back to the Brera district, to see if we can find more of the BreArt shows. We walk along the main street, familiar now with the stores and cafes along the way. When we reach the main piazza, we take the opportunity to have another look inside the cathedral. The renovations are continuing, and some areas that were closed before are open for us today. There’s a man on a cherry-picker cleaning one of the center cornices high up on a marble column. The crane is fully extended so he can reach the cornice, and it reveals to us just how impossibly high the ceiling is. After our visit, we pick up a sandwich from a snack truck and join all the students and tourists sitting on the church steps having their lunches, with the pigeons hopping around us looking for crumbs.
            We make our way over to the Brera neighborhood, looking for BreArt signs on the streets. We visit several interesting exhibitions; one photorealist artist painting fruits and flowers is pretty noteworthy. Then, we come across a former palace exhibition site. We enter through a typical courtyard and grand staircase to the palace rooms with the usual ornate fireplaces, lavish wallpapers and carved crown moldings. Here, though, the rooms are filled with performance art, video art and weird installations. I’m not a huge fan of most of this, it all looks like student work, exploring concepts and experimenting. It probably is student work, actually, since the Academy is right across the street. But it is great to see the space used for creative and untraditional work. We watch a group doing a dance performance that involves marching in formation around the room, turning and clapping, and looking very serious. There doesn’t seem to be any ending coming up soon, so we move on past a guy playing a grand piano with a porthole cut through the top so he can stand inside it and play the keys backwards and upside down, sort of. He’s not bad, although it’s hard to see what he gains, artistically, by the inside-the-piano gimmick.
            At the Fine Art Academy, we see an exhibition of work by Joseph Albers, a favorite of both of us. There are several pieces from the Homage to the Square series, very exciting to see in such an accessible placement, but most of the exhibit includes artifacts from Albers work as a professor of art. After teaching at the Bauhaus in Europe, Albers became a professor at the new Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and then at Yale. The exhibit showed some of his student’s projects, and also a black and white film, with no sound, unfortunately, of Albers teaching a class. His method was often to present a basic problem to the class, and let them work to a solution. “Here is a newspaper. Use it to make something more than a newspaper.” Then he would leave the room, and return in an hour to explore whatever the students had created, talking about their process, what they created, what they learned. His premise was that the more “teaching” that is imposed on the students, the less “learning” they experienced.

1 Video Included

Milan Brera Arts

Oct 24th, Milan Art

10/24   Thursday
            It’s our Contemporary art day! At the Doumo Piazza, there’s the Museum 900, an interesting looking museum. The weather is pretty nice, almost letting the sun come through.
            The Museum 900, or Museum of the Twentieth Century, is much larger than it looks from outside, with a collection of primarily Italian modern artists, arranged chronologically and thematically to illustrate various movements and styles of twentieth century art. De Chirico and Modigliani are well represented. One gallery is empty except for a ceiling mounted neon light sculpture that loses the battle with the fantastic view of the plaza and the cathedral available from the floor to ceiling windows that make up three walls of the room. We pull up a couple of chairs and sit by the windows watching the sky and the crowds in the plaza for a good half hour.
            Just past the great Galleria, we find the Gallerie d’Italia in a former bank building. There’s a very nice café in the building, so we take a break for a cappuccino and a small piece of chocolate cake to share. All the clientele look quite well-off, older and intellectual types, except for one sort of shlumpy guy who orders several glasses of water. When Bob pays our bill, we find that our cappuccinos were a mere 1.50 Euros each. However, our tiny piece of cake was 8 Euros (11 dollars). The nerve.
            The exhibits here are very nice, with modern works on the first floor and a collection of 19th Century art on the lower level. The building itself is an exhibit in itself, with a great glass atrium lobby, fine cabinets for the teller windows, and gorgeous marble floors.
           Later, we get our tram back to our neighborhood, and as we get off the car, Bob says he’s not ready to go home; we should stop for cocktails at the corner bar. OK! The bar is just the right mix of old world and modern, and the bartender is all excited when we tell him we’re from New York, which of course means Manhattan. He serves us our drinks, then comes over with a plate of hors d’oeurves: bruchetta, olives, salami and cheese. What a treat. We sit and relax while people stop in for a quick shot of espresso, an aperol or beer, decompressing after shopping or work. We could get used to this.

1 Video Included

Milan Art

Oct 23rd, Milan Rainy Day

10/23   Wednesday

     Rained In! We’re doing our blog and resting a while since we’re having quite a downpour. By late afternoon, it’s toned down to a drizzle, so we head to the corner to catch a tram. We’ve heard of a neighborhood called Brera, just past the Duomo. It’s historical and arty, and sounds like an Italian SoHo. There’s also an exhibition going on throughout the district called BrerArt, so we want to check it out.
     The Brera neighborhood is nice, with a historic church, Fine Arts Academy and lots of shops and cafes. There is a performing arts theater with a Pomodoro sculpture in the front garden. It would be nice if we knew Italian so we could enjoy the shows. Even though it’s a grey day, we enjoy walking around to see the artwork that’s set up in stores and assorted available spaces. One kitchen design business gives the modern art some serious competition for your attention with their sleek and stylish home designs. The district isn’t as arty or gritty as we hoped, certainly not the “Montmartre of Milan” as advertised, but it’s a pleasure to visit.

1 Video Included

Milan Rainy Day

Oct 22st, Milan Duomo

10/22   Tuesday

            It’s a wet, grey day, good for a rainy walk to the Duomo, or Cathedral Santa Maria Nascente. Milan is a busy and attractive city. As we walk along the street, we pass lots of designer shops, gourmet delis, and cafes. The streets are bustling, but it feels right-sized, not oversized.

            The Duomo, however, is one of the biggest cathedrals we’ve seen. It has a massive footprint on the plaza, a huge block of a building crowned with spires, like an enormous birthday cake, and a golden statue of Santa Maria topping it all. The plaza is framed by porticos and the impressive Galleria of Vittorio Emmanuel II, whose monument and palace fill the piazza opposite the cathedral. The Cathedral is undergoing a total renovation, with most of the exterior showing the results with its bright pastel marble façade. Today the sky is filled with dramatic clouds , but we can imagine how spectacular the Duomo would look in the sunshine. Parts are still draped in construction, inside and out. We go through a brief security check to enter, although there is no fee, except to take photos. Bob pays his 2 Euros for a blue wristband to use his camera. Even with half the interior draped in coverings, the space is awesome. It is difficult to express the grandeur of the arcade of stained glass windows ten stories high. The gothic vaulted arches of the ceiling are even higher.

            Next to the Cathedral is the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuel II (not a shy man, this Vittorio), considered to be one of the world’s the oldest shopping mall. It predates the Galleria Umberto in Naples by about 25 years. It’s similar to the Naples Galleria, with its high glass ceilings and ornate buildings and luxury shops and restaurants. The mall is hugely popular with tourists and locals alike, although how anyone can shop here is beyond me. There are several Prada shops, one showcasing a one-of-a-kind calf-length skirt of crocodile skin for a mere 60,000 Euros. There’s also a creepy tradition of putting your heel on the genitals of a mosaic bull that decorates the floor, and spinning three times around for luck. It’s caused a small dent in the tiles. There’s a constant circle of people making videos of someone spinning, or waiting their turn. Icky. And, although the Galleria went through an expensive lawsuit to keep out McDonalds, we sadly note that there is a McDonald’s opening soon, to join the Burger King that’s already in place.

 1 Video Included

Milan Duomo

Oct 21st, Verona to Milan

10/21   Monday

            Travel to Milan is easy. The train terminal in Milan is one of the wonders of Europe, or maybe anywhere. It’s Grand Central, only Grander. Parts were modeled after Union Station in D.C. It’s gigantic, with impossibly high barrel ceilings in a massive portico. The style isn’t uniformly anything in particular, except impressive.

            We make a couple of connections, including onto a local bus going the wrong way for a while, and arrive at our new neighborhood in Milan. Our host, Sabrina, meets us shortly, and takes us up the five stories no elevator to our apartment. It’s very clean, ten foot ceilings, with a sort of antique-minimalist décor. Very nice. The predominant feature is a poster size photo, a black and white Scavullo-style shot, of a younger Sabrina in a dancer’s top, with her hair perfectly and weightlessly blowing around her face, which is staring at you with an enigmatic expression. Adjectives come to mind: haughty, stern, direct, regal. Scary.

 

Oct 20th, Verona Easy Sunday

10/20   Sunday

            It’s a nice fall day, not sunny, but hazy and still warm. All the families are out today, strollers and little dogs everywhere. We walk into the town and stop at the book fair again. We listen to an author interview, actually not an interview, but a young man talking non-stop for about fifteen minutes, then pausing to read a few pages from his novel. It’s all in Italian, so we really don’t understand him, but I think the book is a historical or fantasy romance. There were allusions to horsemen and falcons, I think.

            We enjoy a cappuccino, watching the people in the market square, then stroll over the old bridge to the neighborhood across the river. People are out having Sunday dinner in the trattorias and bistros. It starts to rain a little as we’re walking towards home. We manage to get inside just before we hear thunder, and it rains harder.

            We can have an easy evening, gathering up our stuff and packing. We’ll have a last dinner on our balcony, and hope the clouds let the moon shine through a little.

Oct 19th, Verona Book Fair

10/19   Saturday

            There’s a big Book Fair going on in the city, with tents set up for author interviews, books for sale, a courtyard with regional food and wine, music, medieval paraders, activities all around the courtyards. It’s too bad that we don’t know Italian, because some of the programming looks very interesting. In the book sale tent, there seem to be so many lovely small publishers represented, I want to buy something just because they’re available.

            We succumb at an early hour to an unusual lack of discipline and sit in the courtyard with some regional wine and a plate of prosciutto and cheeses, watching the crowd and just enjoying the vibe.

            We spend the rest of the day just walking about, until it’s time for dinner. We’ve scoped out a nice, traditional trattoria. As we’ve been reading menus here and there, we see an awful lot of horsemeat listed. Not only horse, but also donkey meat. I make a mental note to read the menu carefully tonight. No ragù di carne di cavallo, thank you.

            We have our dinner out at La Taverna di Via Stella, despite the Trip Advisor reviews all over the windows. It is a really authentic and relaxing restaurant, with attentive service and great food. We have Risotto con Amarone, a risotto made with red wine. I’ve never heard of it, but this is a popular dish in Northern Italy, with the wine changing according to the specialty of the region. It’s just really really delicious.

 1 Video Included

 Verona Book Fair

Oct 18th, Verona Tomb of Juliet

10/18   Friday

            We have some more sites to check off our list today, starting with the Maffeiano Lapidary Museum. This is the collection of a wealthy Veronese aristocrat, who assembled an obsessive collection of memorial stones, that is, he was essentially a grave robber. Most are from the 5th Century BC, and provide a great deal of information about the dearly departed. One very important set of panels running nine feet in length covered in small print, is a will, dispersing the properties of a wealthy Greek woman. The translation actually begins along the lines of “Being of sound mind…” We also see some tombstones that were placed on the graves of horses, as it was a custom to bury valued horses in cemeteries with headstones.

            Moving from the ancient dead to the wonders of technology, we walk to the Museum of Radio. This is going to be fun for Bob. It’s in some kind of technical school. We can’t tell if it’s a high school or more of a community college, but it seems to be the type of place where one learns mechanical drawing and electrical design. The museum, we find, is in the basement, and is undergoing some renovation, meaning that a lot of stuff is piled up in the stairwell. It was established by a Mr. Alberto Chiantera, who had a great passion for radios and spent many years collecting them. There are also photos and other memorabilia related to Marconi. The place looks rather like Mr. Chiantera’s basement, with shelves full of all kinds of radios, vacuum tubes, record players, antennae, radio toys and all sorts of manuals and magazines. There are a few frightening dioramas with dollar store manikins filling the roles of a soldier in the field, or a family gathered around the console. What did we expect, the Smithsonian? It’s fun enough for sure.

            Then, we head over a block or so to complete our bogus Juliette adventure with a visit to “Juliette’s Tomb.” This is in a former monastery, taken for the state by Napoleon, and with the financial fortuity to be in the possession of a suitable tomb in a crypt that everyone can pretend is the site of Juliette’s last repose.

            As we walk back to our neighborhood, we pass a great monumental gateway, so we go closer to see what it is. It’s a huge cemetery! The entryway is an enormous covered portico, suggesting an Egyptian Necropolis, with memorial sculptures that resemble a small bronze tree holding photos of the deceased, and shelves for cremated remains, and tombs in the floor. Beyond that is a gravel-paved cemetery full of marble platforms, headstones and crypts. It looks very crowded. People are dying to get in.

            As we continue on to our apartment, we realize that we’re walking through a University neighborhood, with student hangouts and cafes, and young people rushing to the bus or train station to get away for the weekend.

            We’re nearly home when we find a little grocery where we can get something for dinner. It’s just about 10x10, but has everything you’d need. All the produce and deli foods are carefully placed, everything looks very nice and well presented. I see something in the deli case that looks interesting, and ask the young woman tending the place what it is. Gnocchi, homemade, she makes it herself every day. So we have to have some of that. I pick up a jar of sauce, and once again, we get schooled. Oh NO, she says, for gnocchi, you need gorgonzola. She pulls out a block of beautiful cheese, ready to measure out what we need. I can hear Bob’s arteries squeaking shut from across the room, so I decline the cheese, and she says, OK, not gorgonzola, then this, and gives me a small  can of ragu sauce. And so we leave, properly provisioned for our dinner.

 1 Video Included

Verona Tomb of Juliet