womantraveler

Florence on Foot

Wear your most comfortable shoes in Florence, Italy, and walk anywhere. (Ferragamos preferably when you stroll by the elegant store's home base and museum.) Florence is a small city and you can be anywhere in 30 minutes, yet it's so full of beauty and history that you can't do it all in one visit -- you must keep going back.

We found the Palazzo Magnani Feroni an exquisite hotel just south of the Arno River -- a renovated "palace" (large mansion) that has been in the Giannotti family for more than 250 years. The 12-suite hotel preserves in suites and public areas many antique objects, paintings and tapestries from the early 19th century family patriarch who was one of the most important antique dealers in Europe. At the top of the hotel is a roof terrace that provides a 360-degree panorma of the city and nearby Tuscan hills. It's a perfect place to hear the bells that ring on the hour and view the church domes and bell and clock towers that form Firenze's distinctive architectural landscape.

Our concierge arranged for our first dinner down the street at Osteria del Cinghiale Bianco (wild boar), a casual eatery known for its Tuscan game (I indulged in a wild boar and pasta dish, having had boar before). She also arranged for early morning tickets the next day to the Uffizi Gallery, which was wise given the late-summer throngs that over-crowd the plazas, cafes and sidewalks around town. Loaded with paintings across the span of Italian history, and known as the "Italian National Gallery," the museum orginally was made up of the Medici collections of the 15th-16th centuries. We spent an easy two hours rambling through the galleries and viewing Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Titian, Botticelli, Caravaggio and many many more, as well as classical sculpture dating back to the Roman period. Outside in the Piazza della Signoria, we viewed the "fake David," the full replica that has replaced the original "David" statue by Michaelangelo (the real David is now available for viewing in the Galleria dell'Accademia), and the statues in the 14th century Loggia dei Lanzi (including Cellini's bronze, Perseus holding the head of Medusa). Powerful stuff!

I'm an architecture lover so the exteriors of Santa Croce, the octagonal Baptistery with its famous gilded sculpture doors and the overpowering Duomo cathedral suited me just fine over standing in line for the famous interiors (that will be a plan for the next visit). We had a charming dinner at the Golden View Open Bar with more Tuscan specalities (such as robust red Chiantis) and overlooking the Ponte Vecchio bridge, with its still-bustling shops lit up after dark.

As for Florentine leather, there are great deals everywhere, but beware of the knock-off imports posturing as Florentine products. I walked away from Nannini (several locations in town) with a half-price oversize rectangular pocket book in bright summer red and a fall preview satchel in the hot new ruby-rich deep burgundy for the 2009-2010 season.

Venice at Dawn

Sailing into Venice at dawn aboard Silversea cruise's Silver Wind took our breath away as this floating "city of water" revealed itself in dewy silence before our eyes. Hours later, the plazas and canals would be jammed with people and boats (unfortunately) typical of hot August tourism. But we experienced the postcard-perfect serenity that preserved the magic of the Byzantine-to-Renaissance grandeur of the Grand Canal and its singular landmarks, just like the Venetian explorers  who returned after exporting the luxurious and refined lifestyle of Venezia to other exotic lands.  
Venice is a city that you have to see and feel in your own way. It is primarily a miracle but can also seem an unpleasant nightmare (as in schlepping suitcases on boats and over pedestrian bridges where no cars can travel). That said, the memories of Venice will never leave you, despite any inconveniences.

Midday we caught a glimpse of Piazza
San Marco (St. Mark's Square) and its renowned Basilica di San Marco and Palazzo Ducale, mixes of Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance styles and notable for the eras of Venetian commercial power that they represent. But because the lines were forbidding (and the pigeons aggressively teasing them), we meandered more peacefully through a few interior canals. Best not to visit Venice in August!

Understanding the situation quickly, we opted for the best outing -- hiring a water taxi for an hour-long tour in the late afternoon through the Grand Canal and its offshoots so we could explore on our own terms and see the "back streets" of Venice. The gondoliers are charming as they navigate the 150 canals, but the water taxi ride gave us more space, more distance and a more affordable price. Just go to the Piazza San Marco docking area and pay the 100 euros for your own cruise through "La Serenissima" (Venice at its most serene) with a guide in your own language -- and a taste of the city's sturdy grandeur that you will never forget.

Passing the "palaces" or mansions still preserved over the water from the 12th to the 18th centuries by the city's richest families is a movie scene that you must witness in person. Viva Venezia!

Split, Croatia's Roman History

Split, Croatia, is a boisterous new-world presence signifying dramatic old-world Roman conquests. Croatia's second-largest city is southeast of Venice across the eastern Adriatic Sea. It was our last destination before landing in Venice on our Silversea cruise. Split's historical old town is dominated by the Diocletian Palace, finished in 305 AD as a massive "retirement" home for Roman Emperor Diocletian. The great reformer wanted the once-opulent fortress constructed near his hometown of Salona on the central Dalmatian Coast.

We sailed into Split on a miserably hot August day on our Silversea cruise, but the historical journey through the old town and the palace were well worth a two-hour jaunt. The dimensions of the palace alone are stunning -- walls from 570 to 700 feet long and 50 to 70 feet high, enclosing an area of 9.5 acres. At times it was inhabited by 8,000 to 10,000 people, so it was also filled with outdoor areas and gardens. You can walk among the ruins, go down into the cavelike foundation and see the remnants of the aqueduct spring that fed the palace water supply.

Before Diocletian, the region was part of the Greek empire, and after the Roman Empire fell, Spalatum became part of Byzantium. Today much of the old town meanders in and out of the palace remains, and the Mediterranean-influenced city is a lively shopping destination with old world and contemporary products for tourists and a transition point to the beautiful Dalamatian Coast beaches.

Medieval Kotor, Montenegro

The Bay of Kotor is a glistening fjord off the Adriatic Sea on the southern shore of the Dalmatian Coast; in fact, it's the largest natural port in the eastern Mediterrean region. Continuing on our Silversea cruise, we entered the bay at dawn with its 100 miles of coastline.I stood quietly with several passengers above the bow of the ship for the serene entry into the mountain-rimmed passage that once stood as a defensive military position in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The bay's amazing beauty comes from the blue sea, stony shore, pine-covered mountains and rocky bulwarks crossed by conquerors and traders.

Kotor, Montenegro today is a throwback to ancient eastern Europe. Once part of Yugoslavia, the nation of Montenegro is only 14,000 square kilometers in size, with remarkable geographical contrasts -- glacial lakes, rocky cliffs and the second deepest canyon after the Grand Canyon. Kotor has had many historical identies and today it remains caught between east and west -- a Balkan nation that was once in union with Serbia, that was part of the Venetian empire, that uses the euro but is not part of the European Union, that communicates in both Cyrillic and Roman alphabets.

Because of its important location linking eastern and western Europe, Kotor has always been a city of traders and sailors. Much of what we visit today in the walled city was built between the 12th and 14th centuries. Nearly destroyed several times over the centuries by earthquakes, it remains one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe. It's protected by rivers and mountains and three city gates. About 20 fortifications stand along the serpentine fortress walls, which climb up 260 meters above sea level, and the more adventurous tourists still make the 1300-step trek. In fact, the climb is so treacherous that churches were constructed on the on hillside walls so that soliders would not have to go all the way down the mountain to worship.

Originating in the 3rd century BC, Kotor reflects its rich cultural heritage -- including Byzantine, baroque, Venetian and multi-ethnic Balkan influences. And today it's a popular summer destination with a lively club scene and festivals. I highly recommend the guided tour, with engaging and novel stories about a varied history, its churches and museums and the pirates who once ruled the coasts. At one time there were 30 churches along these narrow passageways and small squares. Still remaining are such edifices as St. Luke's, built in the 13th century and, the latest, an Orthodox cathedral constructed just after the turn of the 20th century.

Kotor is a remote treasure enriched by unsurpassable rugged beauty, a destination that is locked in firmly as a jewel of this cruise.

Venetian Flourishes in Corfu, Greece

 Corfu, Greece, or Kerkyra, lies just southwest of Albania, the southernmost country of the Balkan peninsula. Our Silversea cruise next takes us to Corfu, one of 100 Greek islands that stretch from the Aegean Sea to the Baltic countries. An Ionian Island just off the Adriatic and Mediterranean seas, Corfu is a natural bridge between Europe and the Middle East. The Venetians discovered its particular appeal passing through Corfu in their commercial trading ventures and leaving vestiges of their distinctive architecture in Corfu Town.

Renovated for the European Union summit in 1994, Corfu Town is one of the most elegant capitals in Greece, though many fine buildings were destroyed by Nazi bombers in World War II. Two massive forts protect the crescent-shaped harbor at each end, one constructed by the Byzantines in the 12^th century 100 years before the Venetians began work on the “new” citadel.  In the brutal August sun, we stroll gingerly through Corfu Town, where a major arcaded street front resembles Paris’ Rue de Rivoli, thanks to the French occupation earlier in the 20^th century. The city’s architecture is a hybrid of styles from the occupying armies passing from East to West over the centuries, including the Byzantine Museum in a restored church, with icons, frescoes, sculptures and mosaics from the 15^th-19^th century, and the Orthodox Cathedral built in 1577. Among its icons, the cathedral displays an image of Saint George Slaying the Dragon and three dark atmospheric Italianate paintings from the 16^th century.

As we leave port in the early evening, I consult Henry Miller, quoted in Travelers’ Tales, Travelers Tales Greece: True Stories (Travelers' Tales Guides): “The traveler awakes aboard ship at dawn, with land ahead of him and one shoulder of an island hunched up to the right of the vessel. It is an easy island to identify – those polished great fruity-looking mountains are Albanian. They are spacious and bare, and warmly painted in by the sun as it struggles up to shine over their shoulders on the sea. Corfu lies like a sickle beside the flanks of the mainland, forming a great calm bay, which narrows at both ends so that the tide are squeezed and calmed as they pass into it.”

“He is not of course the first visitor to be electrified by Greek light, to be intoxicated by the white dancing candescence of the sun on a sea with blue sky pouring into it,” Miller goes on. “...Wherever you go in Greece the people open up like flowers...No country I have visited has given me such a sense of grandeur...Greece is a little like China or India. It is a world of illusion.”

Sorrento, Come Back!

We're leavingSorrento, Italy  at twilight on the Silversea cruise line’s 200-passenger Silver Wind, moving away from Italy’s Amalfi Coast,  past Capri, through the narrow straits of Messina and Sicily to the west. The Mediterranean is smooth azure blue. Light winds, soon no land in sight, as the sun hovers over the horizon line, then sinks out of sight. Open space, air, sky nurture gentle thoughts and allow the mind to open, far away from the usual daily clatter. A solo walker moves quickly around the upper deck jogging track, as waiters set up al fresco dining on the pool deck below. I savor these moments between day and night, graceful transitions.

We left Sorrento at 6 pm. “Come Back to Sorrento” hums playfully in the back of my mind. For more than 2500 years, Sorrento has been the preferred home to emperors, kings, popes, great musicians, writers, artists. Across the Bay of Naples, with Mt. Vesuvius looming in the haze, Sorrento’s sharp craggy bluffs protect what was once a small genteel resort, now transformed for summer holidays across the tiny beaches grabbing every inch of sand below its formidable cliffs. (We didn't visit Pompeii, but Robert Harris' historical novel Pompeii: A Novel is a gripping way to do so.)

The Amalfi Coast – hundreds, perhaps a thousand, hairpin turns from Sorrento to Salerno, past Positano, the world’s most photographed fishing village. The Greeks settled Sorrento in the 6^th century BC and gave it the name, Surrentum, “City of the Sirens.” Virtually every European and Eurasian tribe lived there, culminating in the late 19^th century Belle Epoque architecture of the central square. I buy some extra-large Italian wraparound sunglasses, a la Gina Lollobrigida, as we retreat to the cruise ship’s much-cooler decks and read about the Greek Islands coming up tomorrow with a stop in Corfu.

 

36 Hours in Rome

For 36 hours in Rome, you have to be really focused, for seeing what Rome has to offer could be a lifetime of 36-hour visits. Stopping briefly in Rome for the very first time (on the way to a Mediterrean-Adriatic cruise), my smart move was a private tour guide for a half day, arranged by the concierge at the Hotel Splendide Royal. 

Jet-lagged yet eager to set out, I indulged in the private tour for just the dose of sight-seeing I could manage in that short visit. The personalized service was pricey (344 euros plus tip) but well worth not having to stand in interminable lines (hours long) in the excessive August heat (hats and shelter required). By and large the guides, who drive mini-vans, can get you right to the front of a line or even in the door. (Clearly they have their connections.) Typically the minimum fee is a half day and you pay the same price for one or several people, but that splurge certainly was worth it in the personalization, efficiency, ease and dose of history that met my own tolerance levels and expectations. 

First off, I'll have to confess that I skipped St. Peter's and the Vatican City for this trip. I decided to get a wider swath of the sights more serendipitously and then next time, dig in deeper with more planning. That's always been my style for short trips to mega places -- get out on foot or by car to absorb the big picture first, then be choosier and more prescriptive later. It's always worked well for me and resulted in considerable quality and unexpected finds. It happened in Rome, too.

While the tour guides do have their favorite spots, I set aside my long list of touristy to-dos and let Rolando Lerey, who once lived in the U.S., studied at Boston University and speaks seven languages, suggest some destinations I wasn't even aware of. Another smart move because it brought some truly marvelous experiences I wouldn't have selected from my initial research. First off that took us to the less-traveled basilica San Pietro in Vincoli, originally a pagan temple built in 432-440 A.D. to house the relic of chains that bound Saint Peter in Jerusalem. As if that is not awesome enough, here stands Michaelangelo's stirring sculpture of "Moses," part of the funeral monument originally built for Pope Julius II in his relatively small family church. The 8-foot 4-inch marble statue (bottom center) creates a powerful presence of a Moses who is both watchful and meditative (you feel his wise leadership as well as the potential of his terrible wrath), and, frankly, it has stuck with me a lot longer than Michaelangelo's "David," which I later saw in Florence.

Then we drove outside the ancient but still intact city walls to the Appian Way, the oldest and most strategic road in the Roman Empire, where I visited the Catacomb San Callisto (see another post for some highlights of that one-hour tour) and walked along the amazingly preserved 560-mile highway, where the grooves of chariots in the lava bricks are still visible. (Actually the scope of all the preservation in Rome, given its thousands-years antiquity, is completely amazing).

Then, with about 90 minutes left, we cruised through some elegant neighborhoods on the Aventine Hill, before reaching the Capitoline and Palatine hills that house some of the most-renowned treasures. Along the way, we stopped for a view of Sophia Loren's palazzo overlooking Piazza Venezia -- note she has a view of the Vatican in the far distance  among other churches from her terraces -- and around the must-see sights of the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill residence of the emperors built in 200 A.D. and up a narrow roadway untraveled by tour buses and overlooking the Roman Forum, so I could see everything in one sweeping vista. I'll be blogging more about this fabulous trip, but this in itself, was the perfect way to spend part of my first 36-hour Rome adventure.