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Genoa

Posted by Jim St. George on October 14, 2015

Posted in: Europe, Italy. Leave a Comment

Gobsmacked (gob-smakt, adj., chiefly British): 1. Utterly astounded; astonished 2. Reaction of even world travelers upon their first visit to Genoa

One of the innumerable caruggi that make Genoa so interesting

Yeah, Dictionary.com sure got that right; we were blown away by Genoa. It’s a city of great palaces, wonderful art, twisting pedestrian lanes called caruggi, and some of the best food we’ve eaten anywhere. Names like Caravaggio, Columbus, and Grimaldi spring up all over its history. Did I mention pesto, which originated here? Basically it’s a city that was once one of the most powerful in Europe and now has the remnants of that glory available to the small number of tourists who pass through. It’s a trip very much worth making.

The Hall of Mirrors in the Royal Palace, a must-have in 17th century palaces. Touring art museums like this with almost no one around is a real treat.

Genoa (Genova, to the Italians) emerged as an Italian city-state in the Middle Ages; along with Venice, Pisa, and Amalfi it was one of the key maritime republics. Over time it developed one of the most powerful navies in the Mediterranean and developed close trading relations with the Ottomans; later it became a major player as the slave trade. At its zenith in the 16th century it was also a center for Renaissance art as the home at times for such luminaries as Rubens, Caravaggio, and Van Dyck. The great families of the time, the Spinolas and Grimaldis and Dorias, among others, built fabulous palaces during those years, many of which still stand.

(If that name Grimaldi looks familiar, yup, that’s the same Grimaldi family that has ruled Monaco for a few hundred years. After a family feud one branch got fed up and moved down the coast a ways. Seems to have worked out pretty well for them.)

As all great powers learn eventually, though, the good times don’t last forever. As world trade moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic – spurred, of course, by Genoa’s native son Christopher Columbus – and assisted by a healthy dose of the plague, decline began to set in. By the end of the 18th century Genoa was annexed by Napoleonic France before, in the Congress of Vienna, it was ceded to Piedmont and the House of Savoy (this was, of course, decades before the unification of Italy).

Bacchus Triumphant from the Royal Palace. The artist was trying to convey how too much fun (Bachus) brought down the great civilizations from ancient history, but personally I thought it looked like, well, fun.

Fast forward a couple hundred years, then, and here we are in this once grand city. It’s been through some tough years but particularly over the last 20 years or so has bounced back well. The old palaces are museums and hotels and apartment buildings now. The winding caruggi create an incredible atmosphere. They’re maybe 12 feet wide and remarkably clean, compared to Naples at least. The narrowness and big buildings all around create a cool, almost protected space for wandering, usually somewhat lost. There’s upscale shopping and decidedly downscale shopping, too. Indonesian and Peruvian restaurants. A surprising number of recent West African immigrants adding an exotic feel to the place and beautiful fruit and vegetable markets scattered everywhere. And speckled all through the old city are a remarkable number of small-to-tiny Italian restaurants, each one seemingly better than the previous one.

Imagine our surprise – and delight – to see this huge poster advertising Detroit’s contribution to Genoa’s art scene

What were some of our favorite experiences? To be sure, just wandering around was a highlight; it seemed as though every minute one of us would nudge the other and point, gawking, “Look at that building.” The first day we were walking around and, to our surprise, saw a huge poster for an exhibit “From the Impressionists to Picasso” from, of all places, the Detroit Institute of Art. Some 50 or 55 pieces from their collection that document that 50-year transition. It was actually a fabulous exhibit, explained really clearly with some amazing pieces.

For us, at least, that begged another of those museum questions: why was so much of Detroit’s art in Genoa? Is it that they have so many fabulous pieces they can miss these 50-odd works and it doesn’t really matter? Or is it that with so few tourists in Detroit (I’m just guessing, but it’s plausible) they need to make money somehow and this is purely a financial angle? Either way, it was a great opportunity to see some of Detroit’s treasures in a Genoan palace.

One of the things I love about wandering around these museums is that every so often you encounter something new, an artist you’ve never heard of. That happened to us as we toured the DIA exhibit and came across a self portrait by Otto Dix. Neither of us had ever heard of him, but the piece was stunning. With a little research after we got back we learned that he’d done the self portrait before going off to fight in World War I and that his subsequent art wasn’t quite so calm or easy.

Otto Dix’s self portrait, painted when he was just 21

In fact, his 1923 painting The Trench, which depicted dismembered and decomposed bodies of soldiers after a battle, caused such a furore that the Wallraf-Richartz Museum hid the painting behind a curtain. In 1925 the then-mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, cancelled the purchase of the painting and forced the director of the museum to resign. One American curator in 1931 described it as “Perhaps the most famous picture in post-war Europe … a masterpiece of unspeakable horror.”

Now I was really curious to see this Trench, but apparently that’s not possible. The Nazis, you see, considered Dix’s work high on their list of “degenerate art.” And while it appears to have survived early bonfires – a bill of sale seems to prove it existed at least until 1940 – there’s been not a trace of it since then. Other pieces of his that survived, though, suggest that he really didn’t like his war experiences.

Rather than ending on that down note, there was a classic Italian moment when we were trying to get tickets to the Palazzo Rosso, one of the classic palace-turned-museums. Tickets are sold at a bookshop across the street from the museum but we couldn’t find it. When we asked a uniformed city official who worked right next door he explained that it wasn’t open yet. It was 10 AM, though, and the museum opens at 9; what gives? “Sleep,” he tells us. The person who’s supposed to open the bookstore was still sleeping. An hour after opening time! Didn’t anyone in the museum notice that no one was coming in? Eventually, museum staff just let us in without a ticket.

Pesto. We usually ignore the pasta section of a menu but this was worth a splurge.

Finally, I should add a word about Genoese food. Wow! Like I said, the home of pesto, and the pesto we had was simply the best we’ve ever had anywhere. I had a bowl of minestrone soup for lunch one day that was some of the best soup I’ve had anywhere, but the dab of fresh pesto on top may have made it simply the best soup ever. There was a downside to Genoese food; they put potatoes in, on, or under just about everything. That aside, though, it seemed as though every eight- or 10-table trattoria we stumbled into was perfect, with great wines for maybe $12 or $15 a bottle.

Genoa is high on our “gotta go back” list.

Piazza de Ferrari, the center of the city, linking the old narrow alleys to the more modern city

You’re walking down the street wondering what church is inside that little door …

… and find this, the glorious church of the little known San Siro

Or this, another church we stumbled onto, in this case the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata del Vastato

From the Palazza Rosso, which is free if you get there when the ticket guy oversleeps

Fruit and vegetable stands are all over the place

Enjoying one of several just-about-perfect lunches

Florence

Posted by Jim St. George on October 11, 2015

Posted in: Italy, UNESCO World Heritage Site. 1 comment

Mark atop the Duomo, overlooking the bell tower and all of Florence, after climbing the 463 steps to get up there

We’re working our way from Greece & Turkey to Paris, where we’re celebrating my 60th birthday. After our stop in Capri, just because we love Capri, we took a fast train up to Florence. These fast trains are pretty amazing – a two-hour-or-so ride from Naples that used to take three or four times as long. Many is the time as we’ve been traveling that we lament the fact that China and Italy and France and God knows who else can build fast trains for convenient transportation, but somehow the U.S. is unable to do so. Sad.

Since leaving the States in May 2013, Mark & I have spent a little over 10 weeks in Italy, undoubtedly our favorite destination over these nearly two-and-a-half years. Yet none of that has been in northern Italy. We spent a weekend visiting a friend in Rome but otherwise it’s all been in southern Italy and the various islands. So with the prospect of working our way up to Paris we were pretty excited about spending at least a little time in the north and Florence seemed a pretty obvious choice.

We got into Florence, unpacked, walked out for lunch, and got this glorious view of the Duomo & bell tower. The next couple days were mostly rainy, but this sunny shot reminded me immediately why I love Florence.

Mark & I have both been to Florence a couple of times, but the last time we were here was 20 years ago. That’s too long to go between visits to one of the great art centers of the world. If you’re going to Florence, you’re going to spend a lot of time in museums. There was a lot of the city’s museum world that we couldn’t understand, though.

The Birth of Venus, by Boticelli, is probably the Uffizi’s most famous piece

This evocative parade shield on display in the Uffizi was painted by Caravaggio

For instance. As in Istanbul where we made great use of their single-price multi-day museum pass, Florence offers the Florence Card. One price, all the museums you can see for 72 hours from the time of your first. But that price? A whopping 72 Euros, or about $80, per person. My God, who could ever go to enough museums to make that work? We were pretty aggressive in our days there and spent just over $100 total for the two of us. I’m sure there are some people for whom it makes sense but only if you go to three museums a day for three solid days. That would be exhausting.

And while I’m on the topic of what we didn’t understand about museums, the Uffizi Gallery is by far the most famous museum in Florence, one of the great museums in the world. Wait times, if you don’t pay extra to reserve a specific entrance time, can exceed four hours. Yet they close the museum on Mondays. Why? I understand a small restaurant closing one night a week so the staff have a day off, but the Uffizi must have hundreds of staff people. Surely they could schedule people so the museum would be open seven days a week. And I don’t buy the possibility that they need a day off each week for maintenance or to change exhibits or something like that. There are huge construction projects going on all the time at museums and they’re always moving art in and out. File it under mystery or, more likely, Italy’s general inefficiency.

This depiction of Bacchus, sculpted by a young Michelangelo, was in the Bargello. Amusingly, the statue was rejected by the guy who commissioned it as he felt Bacchus looked, well, a little tipsy or something.

But the mysteries continue. Late Sunday afternoon, after we’d made our reservations to go to the Uffizi on Tuesday, he notice that there was no line to get in. On closer inspection he saw that they were just letting people in for free, more than an hour before closing. We’d been told there were no tickets available for Sunday afternoon, but then they just open the doors wide for anyone who wants to go in for free. So Mark had the chance to go through and reconnoiter, to see what we should look at more closely on Tuesday. Similarly, the Bargello Museum is a world-class collection of sculptures, described as “Italy’s most comprehensive collection of Tuscan Renaissance sculpture.” When we went there one Sunday morning, though, it was free; they were just handing out tickets, normally priced at the bargain price of $4.50, to anyone who wanted in. I appreciated it, but weird.

One more mystery. The Medici Chapel, built by the powerful Medici family in the 17th century as their family chapel and mausoleum, is one of the must-see sites in the city. Full of Michelangelo sculptures and sumptuous marble and granite, the Chapel speaks clearly to Medici power, wealth, and love of art. Yet it, too, is periodically closed, in this case the first, third, and fifth Mondays of the month. We were there the first Monday so had to delay our visit for a day. And even if someone could actually explain why it has to be closed two or three days a month, couldn’t they arrange it so it was closed on different days from the Uffizi? Or are those only questions an American, obsessed with efficiency and rationality, would ask?

The Duomo, et al., viewed as the sun was setting from Piazzala Michelangelo

The Arno River and Ponte Vecchio

OK, enough time plying the brains of Italian museum administrators. It’s a great city. One of the strange things about it for us, though, was how many Americans there were. As we’ve traveled around we used to be surprised by how few Americans we’d encounter; a tiny fraction of what you’d expect given the size and wealth of the country. What we’ve learned, though, or at least surmised, is that there are a relatively small number of places on the American tourist mindset: London, Paris, Rome, maybe the French Riviera, even Prague. And no question, Florence. On Sunday night we were at dinner (often a challenge on Sundays when many smaller restaurants that we like close) and with the exception of a Spanish couple it appeared that every single patron was American, though of course some of them could have been Canadian. Strange.

Oddly, after a 20-year absence from the city we’re already planning our next visit here, meeting friends here next July. I’m hoping that we’ll have time then to spend more time wandering in Tuscany since, great as Florence is, the rest of the region is pretty fabulous too. In fact, with a bike trip scheduled in the Dolomites of northern Italy in early June and then the Florence visit in July, we might spend another 10 weeks in Italy next year, this time entirely in the north. Maybe we’ll just never leave.

The Duomo once the sun had set

The Arno, during a brief period of sunshine

We went into the Baptistry adjoining the Duomo and Mark said “Wow, this is Byzantine. Didn’t they get the memo about the Renaissance?” Sure enough, turns out it dates from the 12th century and thus is quite different from all rest of the Renaissance art you see in the city.

Raphael did this portrait of Pope Leo X, born a Medici, along with two Cardinals. Two young cardinals, who happened to be his nephews. And Medicis. Crazy coincidence, huh?

Just one of seemingly hundreds of amazing walls you see in churches in Florence

Oh yeah, there was food, too, including this delightful carpaccio. Did we mention Italy has great food?

Capri Again (and a Teeny Bit of Naples)

Posted by Jim St. George on October 7, 2015

Posted in: Italy. Leave a Comment

No matter how many times I come to Capri I always love the views of the Faraglioni

From Turkey we’re working our way up to Paris to celebrate my birthday. Fist stop en route is Capri, our third visit to what we think is probably the most beautiful place on earth. Seriously. It’s pretty close to perfect: sheer limestone cliffs rising out of impossibly blue water, beautiful walking trails, great hiking, spectacular views, good food. It’s beauty has been appreciated over thousands of years; it was a resort as far back as the era of the Roman Republic and Augustus spent considerable time here. His successor Tiberius, who came to hate Rome, spent the last 10 years of his reign on the island; he never returned to Rome after settling here. Jackie O was a regular habitué in the jet-setter 1970s, and Sophia Loren still has a house on the island. Perhaps it’s not surprising we find ourselves returning again and again.

There are always fabulous yachts anchored off Marina Piccola making for gorgeous pictures

Our dilemma in returning to Capri can be summed up in a simple question: Capri or Anacapri? Capri is the main town on the island and the center of fabulous. The best hotels are here as are the most beautiful “streets.” (I put that in quotation marks because these are all pedestrian tracks; cars and buses connect the two towns on the island along with the ports, but once inside the town it’s all on foot.) The great Roman ruins of both Augustus and Tiberius are accessed from Capri, while the iconic faraglioni are on this side of the island, too.

On the Phoenician Steps, climbing from Capri, below, to Anacapri

There’s an expensive private beach near here, but I found a flat rock with this view for my afternoon reading. Very pleasant.

On the other hand, Anacapri is more of a “real” town, with better and more affordable restaurants. It’s several hundred feet higher than Capri and has better hiking, including the Sentiero die Fortini (Path of Small Forts) on the relatively remote western coast, along with the world famous Blue Grotto. The good news is that, to say the least, there are no bad choices. First time we stayed near Capri, the second time in Anacapri, and this time back to Capri. And when we get a little tired of wherever we are, we hike to the other town. The Phoenician Steps, probably built first by early Greek settlers, used to be the only way between the two towns and we still climb them a significant part of the way between the two towns.

We timed our arrival in late September to coincide with the start of the low season; hotels are merely crazy expensive now, instead of insanely so. For the first two days the timing was perfect, still great weather for walking around and enjoying the island’s beauty. The third day, though, we woke up to a pretty hard rain, really the first rain like that we’ve seen in months. And for the next few days, that was the pattern, morning rain, clearing somewhat by noon. As a result I can now say definitively I love Capri even when it’s comparatively cold and rainy; it was still beautiful, if not in a “let’s go to the beach” kind of way.

Unlike our other stops on Capri, this time we didn’t stop in Naples; we just passed through on our way back and forth. We timed our outbound train to Florence, though, so that we could catch a morning boat from Capri, store our luggage for a couple hours at the train station, and have lunch in Naples. Besides just thoroughly enjoying even a quick chance to see Naples again, we scored big with a pretty random restaurant, a tiny, old restaurant with great food and, in the best Neopolitan tradition, the best bread on earth.

From here we’re off to Florence as we continue the trek to Paris.

The “street” that connects our hotel to the center of town. Not a bad little walk…

The view up to Monte Solaro from our breakfast room

And the view once the rains hit. Still beautiful.

Our favorite little restaurant in Anacapri. It’s a classic Mom-and-Pop operation, with son and daughter serving. Last year we stumbled on it the first week they opened; today (after our glowing review) it’s the top rated restaurant in Anacapri on TripAdvisor!

Approaching Naples from the sea after our visit to Capri. I saw this sight many time while in the Navy, though the air is a lot cleaner these days.

Intense, bustling, dirty Naples, with life just poring out of the buildings and into the chaos of the city’s streets

Our lunch stop in Naples was a total find, just one of a thousand little restaurants in the city

Classic Italy: calamri, salad, red wine, bread (though we pretty much leave the bread alone…)

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