Passeggiata: Strolling Through Italy     Publisher: BookSurge Publishing     Date of Publication: June 13, 2008 EXCERPTS Milano The Piazza Duomo in Milan is high energy, large and full of people and activity, intensely Italian, yet in a modern way. The more business-like culture of northern Italy prevailed in Milan, feeling more like New York or Chicago than Rome or Florence. Traffic crosses the bottom part of the piazza, but across its broad space a constant flow of people comes and goes. The walkways around the piazza are a way for pedestrians to get places, to do business, to shop, and to meet people, rather than just to stroll quietly. Al and I surveyed the elegant Duomo rising with its white marble exterior and appearance of dripped icing on its many small spires and sculpted figures. Its spires reached toward and into the heavens. The high steeples reach beyond what the eye can see, if not literally then symbolically. We wandered into the interior of the church, spent a few minutes looking around in the vast darkness, and then followed the small signs to the back entrance from which we would be able to climb to the rooftop. When we reached the highest level, we relaxed in the serene quietness in the pleasant air far above the piazza. Leaning on a balustrade, we realized we were in the company of the statues of saints, which looked out over the busy square below from the white spires of the cathedral. They were surrounded by beauty, white marble, blue sky and birds, and the beauty reflected downward. We stayed for a while, leaning back against one of the slanted roof structures but safely away from any edge, basking in the morning sunlight and the loveliness of it all. When we returned to the busy city, a sense of the beauty and the blessings of the saints above stayed with us. The Cinque Terres In Vernazza, we had one of those travel moments frozen in time that all travelers experience, those moments where everything comes together, not because of an important sightseeing experience but just something simple. Al had noticed a small gelato shop opposite the church and bought us each a cone. We climbed onto the large flat rocks at the edge of the blue water. We ate our gelato and looked at the water and felt the sun and looked at the boats and just sat there for awhile. We were not looking at things as much as just being there, part of the scene, and it was fine. The picture was perfect and we were in it. The side of the stone church was behind the boats so if we turned from the sea we saw the town. As we sat in the sun on the warm rock at the edge of the blue water, I was reminded of some Walt Whitman poems in which he became both the participant in a scene and a poetic observer though his notice of sensory detail. Like Whitman, we were able to observe the scene as we might appear in it, leaning back against the broad rock, eating our gelato and looking at the sea around us. Not only were we taking in the sights and sounds and tastes and smells of the scene around us, but we were in it surrounded by images of color and light, sound and taste, and scent and touch, the hard warm rocks beneath us, the balmy sea air on our skin. We were our own picture postcard. In Lucca We ate pizza one night in a noisy and popular neighborhood place, ordering from the counter and drinking beer at a small booth, a good spot to watch the Friday night gathering of the mostly young people who filled the busy but friendly place. Another night we ate at a small and mostly empty restaurant. From our table, among the seven or so in the space, we watched the chef, Francesco, who was also the owner, through an open space, a window into the kitchen at the back. He stirred sauces in large pans and lifted pasta with a slotted spoon from a steaming pot. His wife brought the dishes to us as soon as he put food on our plates. We felt like we were part of the family. Francesco’s placemats featured a drawing, red lines on antiqued looking rust colored paper, which was a pretty good likeness of himself. At home Al found a frame for the extra and clean copy that he asked for and it hangs in our bedroom. The drawing reminds us of the simple meal, the good food, the friendly atmosphere. Amalfi The Amalfi coast road is mostly a narrow two lanes between the sheer drop offs to the sea on the west and the hillsides rising straight upright from the other side. There are no extra lanes for passing or to pull off, except for an occasional lookout space for photo opportunities and buses. As our driver swung out along the curves over the high cliffs seemingly heading straight off into the wide blue yonder of sky and sea, several women passengers reacted audibly with the thrill of a roller coaster experience. Al and I felt the same way. We had been warned to expect the constant switches back and forth as we traversed the high edge of the cliffs with only a few feet, if that, of solid earth between us and thin air. We also knew that the bus drivers were experienced and did this ride everyday, and, that even though they drove faster than any of us might have, they were in control and knew the roads, anticipating the curves and the speed required to navigate them. We swished out and back above the sea, occasionally moving down the hillside or around a curved outcrop of jutting land, our bus seemed to hang toward the edge of the sea at every moment. Still, I hoped that the angels and saints who had been looking over this part of the world for so long would continue to keep an eye on things. Even though it was a little hazy, the views were spectacular, especially when we could look down at the sea, out to the clouds, and across to sheer cliffs across an inlet of water far below us, a kind of mirror of the cliffs we were traveling along the top. Roma Like the ancients who said that all roads led to Rome, we seem to feel the most connection to this “eternal city.” It’s hard to imagine going back to Italy without spending at least a couple of days in Rome. We walk through the narrow streets, get lost, resurface in a familiar area, and enjoy just being part of the intensity of this ancient as well as modern place. We see the traffic circle from the Via Vittorio Emanuele through the Piazza Venezia past the white monument called the wedding cake, because of its layered design, which dominates the circling traffic, and feel that we are in the center not only of Rome but of a conflux of energies. We have a sense of its variety and focus on sections rather than trying to comprehend the whole. I remember waking up on one Sunday morning to the sound of church bells from several churches all competing in joyful celebration of the Sunday sunshine. The windows were open and the shutters wide, as we dozed in the jet-lagged morning with the sun streaming in and the bells ringing. I realized then that Rome was not ultimately about the historical sights and famous churches; it was about being immersed in experience, moments so full of life that they deserved to be remembered always, memories that, like William Wordsworth said in his poem “Daffodils,” could be recalled in “the bliss of solitude,” and fill our hearts with pleasure. We all have these experiences when our senses are so alive that we want to preserve them in their entirety, but I seem to have more in Rome.