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lollardfishBesides. Some things a camera can't really capture. So instead, I'll offer a thousand words. Or so. Counting was never my strong suit.
In Italy, acceptable dinner times start around 8:00. You can arrive earlier, and in touristy restaurants they will serve you, but they won't exactly be happy about it. 7:30 is ok. 6:30 is right out. In Venice, I once had a non-touristy restaurant send me away, and the firey gypsy waitress scoffed at the idea and ordered me to return in two hours. Which I did, and did not regret it. At any rate, I was done with my sightseeing yesterday around 6:30, and needed to kill a little time. I hiked up and out of the city and towards a sign that told me there was a park nearbye. By seven or so, I had perched on some steps, leaning my back against the higher one, and settled in to read for a little while. The city was to my right, both above and below me, spread out beautifully to the west of me. Farther west, a low bank of grey clouds stretched down towards tios if grey-blue Umbrian hills. Lovely, yes. But I hadn't seen the real show yet. I read quietly for awhile, engrossed in my Donna Leon mystery, and a few minutes passed.
A woman drove by on a red Vespa, and the noise of the scooter in the quiet evening made me look up behind me and to my left as she 'scooted' by, then I glanced to my right. At that moment, or so it seemed, the sun appeared in the gap between hilltop and low cloud. Muted just slightly by the evening haze, it hovered as a perfect red-gold globe, illuminating the hillside, and filling the sky around it with a glorious luminescence. It dropped, the pace of the orb visible to my eye, and within two minutes it dropped below the hills. Within another five minutes, the smoldering red glow it left behind began to fade, and I put my book away and headed down to dinner.
So I'm dealing with my divorce again. There's one last divorce paper I have to sign (we both have to waive our rights to attorneys, or get attorneys) by 9/18 or the whole process has to start again. I am not, and was not, amused at this sudden rush of having to deal with this stuff again, especially while she's off in Cairo. I am getting it fed ex'd to Venice and will deal with it next week, and snapped off a relatively nasty email saying so. It fouled my mood and my day until this moment with the sunset when all cares seemed to lift.
It also made me think of St. Francis. He had, in my reading of it, such a close relationship to nature, using it as one of his channels to the divine. I was struck, earlier in the day, by the Giotto fresco of St. Francis and the 'miracle of the spring.' This is not Francis preaching to the birds, driving out demons, calming wolves, or doing any of the other things that attest to his personal sanctity, at least according to Christian thought, but simply him and his friars with the springtime. The natural world of Umbria could bring serenity to any wild and worried heart, and perhaps even offer us meaning in the midst of, what was for Francis, a fairly challenging world at times. As it is for all of us. Anyway, enough of that. Assisi was a good place to stop, and I hope to take a trip through Umbria (with car) someday. So many perfect little places viewed from the train window.
Dinner, by the way, was Strangozzi, a thick hand-made spaghetti-like pasta, served very al dente, with walnuts and spinach, followed by veal scallopini with a truffle and white wine sauce. Truffles are something of an Umbrian speciality.
Alas, I have left such fungus behind, and am now in Rome. After a tiring afternoon of walking and walking, and wandering the Palatine, the Forum, the Colleseum, and the sad monstrosity that is St. Giovanni at the Lateran (I hate the baroque period with a deep passion), I am ready for a simple dinner and a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, the Vatican and Castle Sant'Angelo.
In Italy, acceptable dinner times start around 8:00. You can arrive earlier, and in touristy restaurants they will serve you, but they won't exactly be happy about it. 7:30 is ok. 6:30 is right out. In Venice, I once had a non-touristy restaurant send me away, and the firey gypsy waitress scoffed at the idea and ordered me to return in two hours. Which I did, and did not regret it. At any rate, I was done with my sightseeing yesterday around 6:30, and needed to kill a little time. I hiked up and out of the city and towards a sign that told me there was a park nearbye. By seven or so, I had perched on some steps, leaning my back against the higher one, and settled in to read for a little while. The city was to my right, both above and below me, spread out beautifully to the west of me. Farther west, a low bank of grey clouds stretched down towards tios if grey-blue Umbrian hills. Lovely, yes. But I hadn't seen the real show yet. I read quietly for awhile, engrossed in my Donna Leon mystery, and a few minutes passed.
A woman drove by on a red Vespa, and the noise of the scooter in the quiet evening made me look up behind me and to my left as she 'scooted' by, then I glanced to my right. At that moment, or so it seemed, the sun appeared in the gap between hilltop and low cloud. Muted just slightly by the evening haze, it hovered as a perfect red-gold globe, illuminating the hillside, and filling the sky around it with a glorious luminescence. It dropped, the pace of the orb visible to my eye, and within two minutes it dropped below the hills. Within another five minutes, the smoldering red glow it left behind began to fade, and I put my book away and headed down to dinner.
So I'm dealing with my divorce again. There's one last divorce paper I have to sign (we both have to waive our rights to attorneys, or get attorneys) by 9/18 or the whole process has to start again. I am not, and was not, amused at this sudden rush of having to deal with this stuff again, especially while she's off in Cairo. I am getting it fed ex'd to Venice and will deal with it next week, and snapped off a relatively nasty email saying so. It fouled my mood and my day until this moment with the sunset when all cares seemed to lift.
It also made me think of St. Francis. He had, in my reading of it, such a close relationship to nature, using it as one of his channels to the divine. I was struck, earlier in the day, by the Giotto fresco of St. Francis and the 'miracle of the spring.' This is not Francis preaching to the birds, driving out demons, calming wolves, or doing any of the other things that attest to his personal sanctity, at least according to Christian thought, but simply him and his friars with the springtime. The natural world of Umbria could bring serenity to any wild and worried heart, and perhaps even offer us meaning in the midst of, what was for Francis, a fairly challenging world at times. As it is for all of us. Anyway, enough of that. Assisi was a good place to stop, and I hope to take a trip through Umbria (with car) someday. So many perfect little places viewed from the train window.
Dinner, by the way, was Strangozzi, a thick hand-made spaghetti-like pasta, served very al dente, with walnuts and spinach, followed by veal scallopini with a truffle and white wine sauce. Truffles are something of an Umbrian speciality.
Alas, I have left such fungus behind, and am now in Rome. After a tiring afternoon of walking and walking, and wandering the Palatine, the Forum, the Colleseum, and the sad monstrosity that is St. Giovanni at the Lateran (I hate the baroque period with a deep passion), I am ready for a simple dinner and a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, the Vatican and Castle Sant'Angelo.
