(13 Ottobre 2001)This morning we had another hostel breakfast in Trento. Inexplicably, this hostel plays Celine Dion in the dining room. This morning it is a different album than yesterday. This one has "My Heart Will Go On." Nic and I wandered around Trento, checking out the place. The fountain that is so beautiful at night isn't nearly as impressive by day. We located a grocery store, and picked up lunch supplies including rolls, beer, Parma ham, carrots, and cookies. We walked to the base of the cable car, surprisingly near the hostel, bought tickets and waited a few minutes. The cable car crossed the river, and in 4 minutes, took us up some 500 meters. We wandered around a bit, and settled on a quiet grassy spot at the top of a cliff, with Trento spread out below. We had lunch and afternoon naps. It was sunny and warm.

We wandered around the little village at the top of the hill, checking out a tiny little church with surprisingly good paintings. We took the cable car back down, collected our luggage from the locker at the hostel, and caught a train to Verona. We located the Verona hostel without much difficulty. It is an enormous place, kind of a big old castle. The staircase right inside the door has amazing painting on the ceiling. Although much of the place has been renovated, our room wasn't. It was a huge room, probably 40 yards long, with dividing walls, and a total of 36 beds. The bathroom had gang showers, the first time I've seen that in Italy, and the toilets were downstairs. We left our stuff, and headed down back across the river to see Verona. It is an interesting town, full of people on the crowded streets, shopping in chic stores. The streets are twisting and narrow. We crossed the river, and watched the sun set from the top of an enormous castle. Nic wondered if this would be a particularly romantic town if Shakespeare hadn't set Romeo et Gulietta here. Probably not is our verdict. Interesting, but not too special. We found an excellent pizza place for dinner. It was full of local families, and very friendly. It would have been much more fun had we understood more Italiano. I'm noticing this to be a fairly common observation. Travelling with a fellow English speaker obviously makes me speak more English, and be more aware of being foreign. I really do like having someone to travel with though. Eating out, for one thing, is much more fun.

(14 Ottobre 2001) This morning, I got up and went to San Francesco for mass. It is the church directly across the street from the hostel. It is really strange that the hostels all keep the same hours on Sunday as they do all week. Nothing else in Italy does. Having to leave the place by ten puts you out on the street before most of the town is awake. Church was good, I got a copy of the order of mass in Italian, and had a much more successful time following along. The Nicean Creed in Italiano goes "Credo in un solo Dio"("We believe in one God") it is neat to read the Italian knowing the exact words in English. After mass, I met Nic downtown, near L'Arena, the ancient Roman coliseum used as an opera house. Unfortunately mid-October is too late to see any outdoor opera. Nic saw the tourist trap Casa di Gulietta (Juliet's House) without any tourists. Most of the time there is a huge crowd of people waiting to touch the statue's breast and have their picture taken. We began walking towards the Stadium. Right around 2, we bought our 50000 lit. tickets for the Sunday Football game. Hellas Verona was playing Bologna. There were probably 30000 people there. It was a blast. We were sitting high above the field, in midpriced seats so we weren't amongst the crazed crowds behind the goals. The stadium is one of those 1970s concrete doughnuts, with a running track between the football field and the crowd. When we sat down, we wondered why there were firemen watering down the track at the ends. When the Bologna team was announced, and the fans began throwing fireworks, the reason became apparent. Again we were glad to be sitting amongst a more staid crowd. We rooted for Verona, the home team. Unfortunately, they lost 0-1. After Bologna scored that goal, it was amazing how much more violent the game became. Yellow and Red cards were flying, and it seems like some of the players were better actors than athletes, writhing with feigned pain on the grass. After the game, we walked back to town, Nic bought a Verona Football jersey, and I bought a calendar with scenes from the Opera. Dinner was at another restaurant across the river from the tourists.

(15 Ottobre 2001)This morning we got our act together early, hopping a bus and then the train to Venezia (Venice). I hate the fact that so many places have English names that are different than what the people that live there call it. I would understand it if they used a different alphabet, but Italiano is almost identical to English. Verona is less than 2 hours by train, and the last 15 minutes are all on a causeway, straight across the water to the city of canals. Upon stepping out of the train station in Venezia, you are confronted with Canal Grande. It really exists, just like you've heard about forever. We attempted to get our bearings, bought tickets to the vaporetto (city bus-boats). We picked a route, and boarded a boat toward Giudecca and Ostello Venezia. The hostel in Venezia is constantly full, and we carefully scheduled our arrival to occur on a Monday, and in plenty of time before the place opened. There was a crowd of people already there, all vying for the same beds. the sign in the window said "We have places for 10 men and 12 women." Nic stood in line, I counted the crowd. I believe we were men 7 and 8 in line. We did get places. Sitting on my bed in the room, I could look out the window, across the canal, and see the Campanile of San Marco. Many people pay far more than $15 a night for rooms without such views. After the initial stress of finding a place to stay in this crowded town was gone, we were able to relax and observe the town. Everyone in Venezia is a tourist. We rode Vaporetto #1 up the Canal Grande, taking in the Palazzos and bridges. The Rialto bridge is beautiful, it would be better if there weren't a couple hundred tourists taking pictures from it. Venezia is a walking city, and navigating the sidewalks and bridges is difficult. At times it seems like a labyrinth. There are extremely unhelpful signs everywhere, giving conflicting information about which way to San Marco and the Rialto. We had excellent gelato. We tried to find a restaurant not filled with tourists, to no avail. Everyplace has the menu in 3 or 4 languages, a real tip-off to the tourist crowd within. Eventually we did eat, nothing spectacular. The sunset over Canal Grande was sublime however.

(16 Ottobre 2001)This morning Nicolai and I got up really early. We were out of the hostel by 7, and over at San Marco's shortly thereafter. The whole point was to see the famed piazza without the hordes of tourists or pigeons. It is a memory that I will take forever, the enormous square, almost devoid of people, the early morning mist, and the sheer magic of a Venetian sunrise. Nicolai took pictures. I hope they come out, and are able to capture the moment. We watched the crowds of shop owners arrive and prepare for the onslaught, and then the hordes began to arrive. The pigeons punched in on their timeclock at about the same time the tourists showed up. We were nearly first in line to tour the Palazzo Ducale, it was the seat of government for many years, as well as the Doge's residence. It is on the right hand side of the piazza. Disney's version, at Epcot, puts it on the left. The gold ceilings in the meeting rooms are amazing. The Bridge of Sighs is interesting, but better to look at from the outside than to walk across. The prisons are as expected, except of course they aren't underground. Not many buildings in Venice have basements, come to think of it...The rest of the day was filled with more wandering. Venezia has more than its share of picturesque spots, being here isn't unlike living in a painting. It is easy to see why this is one of the world's great cities. We took a vaporetto out to Murano, more for the ride than to go buy overpriced glass objects. Murano seems like real people might just live there. We returned, and found a restaurant serving the Venetian specialty, a pasta sauce made with the ink of a cuttlefish. Cuttlefish is a cephalopod, related to octopus. The Venetians call it Seppia. Nicolai and I shared a risotto made with the stuff. It is absolutely black, and stains. It doesn't have much flavor. The risotto was studded with what at initial observation appeared to be mushrooms, and at a closer look ("I think that's a tentacle"), were actually the little cuttlefish. It still makes me squirm a little bit. We both ate our plates full, albeit slowly, and were eager to wash it down with gelato. Nicolai is leaving tomorrow, so we went around shopping, he's filling his bag with Italian food goodies. I don't think I'll be able to do the same in a few weeks, EU nations don't have customs laws like we do in good old Estati Uniti.

(17 Ottobre 2001)Nicolai left this morning, we parted ways at the San Marco vaporetto stop. He hopped a plane to Copenhagen. I waited with the crowds for the opening of the Basilica di San Marco, the mosaics are amazing, blowing away most of Ravenna's collection. Despite the crowds this is an amazing place, unfortunately you aren't really allowed to wander around. The treasury is interesting, basically a pile of reliquaries that the enterprising Venetians stole from their neighbors in the heyday of their maritime power. Not nearly as impressive as San Antonio's, but then he did have that tongue. The gold, jewel-encrusted altar screen is breathtaking. In a change of pace, I headed off to the Peggy Guggenheim collection. Ms. Guggenheim, heiress of the Guggenheim fortune and niece of Solomon R Guggenheim, was an art dealer and collector. At her death her collection was given to her uncle's foundation, with the specific instructions that the collection was never to leave Venezia or be broken up. Today, her palazzo is a museum, filled with an array of 20th century works. A beautiful Calder mobile and the several Jackson Pollacks are among my favorites, but the Gino Severini "Sea=Dancer" and "Blue Dancer" take the cake. On my way out of the Guggenheim, I was accosted as a gullible looking tourist by an enterprising watercolor artist. I basically stood there while he sold me a painting. The price fell from 95,000 lira to 50,000 without me arguing. I eventually did buy one, because this guy was actually painting it, not selling mass-produced work, and because I believe it does capture a bit of the magic Venetian light. I have kind of avoided buying too much stuff so far, although I do plan on sending a box home at some point, I just don't want to carry it around. Shifting gears again, I walked from the Guggenheim over to the Gallerie dell'Accademia. This is an absolutely amazing art museum, filled with all kinds of painting. I kind of liked it because there are many beautiful things here, but no showstopper that all the tourists crowd in to see. They also handle the problem of annotating the works really well, with laminated cards in a variety of languages, for each room. After spending a few hours there, I was really hungry. I walked up toward the Rialto bridge, toward a restaurant that my friend Jeff had recommended. Called Peoceto, it certainly qualifies as the nicest meal I've eaten so far, and as the most expensive. Apparently Venice is low on restaurants that make foodies go crazy, but this might just be one. I ordered the Tagliatelle Peoceto, figuring that anything with the restaurant's name in the title wouldn't be bad. It was wonderful, round long spaghetti-like noodles, with a spicy tomato-based sauce. The thing that made it remarkable was the seafood tossed with the pasta. There were more things staring back at me from the plate than I could properly believe. I have no idea what many of those things were. Several kinds of shellfish, different shrimps, who knows what all. I had a huge pile of shells left on the plate after I'd finished every morsel. One of those little dishes with warm lemony water was presented for me to dip my fingers. I stayed for a café, a perfect Italian espresso. One of the most enjoyable meals I've eaten. After my lunch, I caught the vaporetto down to the public gardens. Right now Venezia is hosting the Biennale, an international exhibition of contemporary artwork. The park has all kind of permanent buildings, pavilions dedicated to many nations. They were all filled with amazing artwork. The show was enormous, and I didn't even see half, but I was taken with some things especially. The Spanish Pavilion was almost the first thing I saw, but it blew me away. It was an enormous square room, painted black, with a perfectly even light source covering the ceiling. Suspended from the ceiling was a hemisphere of open wire, hanging from the intersections of the wires were large glass bulbs, not unlike enormous light bulbs. The light was pink, there was a wind in the room, and the magical sound of glass on glass filled the place. It is the sort of thing that would give Dale Chilhuly a run for his money. The Polish pavilion had a corrugated floor, painted orange on one side and blue on the other, with yellow on top. When you stood at the left side of the room, the floor appeared entirely blue. When you crossed the room and looked down, you saw yellow, and when you got to the other end, the whole floor was orange. Cool. Italia had a small gallery with 2 men inside painting. One used black paint, slowly painting the white walls black with a roller. The other used white paint, rolling onto the black surfaces, 2 walls away from the other guy. This endless cycle continued for the whole exhibition period. Fascinating.

(18 Ottobre 2001)This morning, I got up relatively early, left the hostel via vaporetto, and bid my good-byes to the floating, sinking city of dreams. I took a fast train to Milano. Even at InterCity speeds, it took about 4 hours. I finished my book, a book I was eager to put away, since it was a large hardbound book that a New Zealander had given me in Assisi. Murder mystery, the detective's name was Scarpetta. The Milano train station is enormous, a huge deco-fascist creation. It is exactly how I envision a huge European Statzione. From the train station, I took the subway out to a station inexplicably called QT8. With some difficulty, I located the youth hostel, a forbidding 1960s structure surrounded by a tall spiked fence. It was still before the midafternoon lockout was over, so I sat down on my bag, dozing. With the usual Italian hostel formalities I checked in. The place seemed huge, and ultra impersonal. I locked up my bag, and headed into town. It was a cloudy, hazy day, but as I ascended the staircase and the facade of the Duomo appeared, I was amazed. Milano's Duomo is very gothic, and apparently the face has some 3000 statues. The church is beautiful inside too, with more stained glass than I've seen so far. Near the Duomo there is a huge covered shopping arcade, a glass arch probably 100 feet high. It is full of interesting stores, nothing I could ever afford. One of the exits of the arcade is on Piazza della Scala, in front of Teatro alla Scala, the world's most famous opera house. Naturally I checked the building out, somewhat surprisingly the outside isn't particularly ornate.

I did some research on cheap tickets and found that tomorrow I could get arrive before 8 AM and have a chance to see Macbeth, in its first performance this season. I wandered away from the Opera, window shopping in the ridiculous number of boutiques that line the streets. People on the streets in Milano are extraordinarily well dressed, and I felt like a slob in my traveler's clothes. This seems like a very big city, with surprisingly little to do besides shop. I got a bit turned around and I had a hard time finding dinner. Eventually I got back on the subway and fell asleep. This hostel is the worst I've seen. It is run like the military, with all the lights being shut off at exactly midnight. Places like this are reminders that Italy was once a fascist country. Those traditions haven't totally died.

(19 Ottobre 2001) This morning I got up early, in order to go down to la Scala early. I think there was a guy assigned to a bed in our room that never actually went to sleep. I think he spent the whole night pacing the hall. Of course my locker was right below his. I am over the hostel weirdness. I took the train down to the Duomo, and at la Scala met a man putting names on a list. He put my name down, and I was instructed to return this evening at 6:45. That part of my mission accomplished, I did a bit of what Milano seems to be best at, shopping. Italy has a nationwide chain of department stores, a bit like JC Penny, called Oviesse. They are nice places, with reasonable prices. I found the big Milano one, and wandered around. I bought new t-shirts and underwear, with the intention of jettisoning most of my dirty, stained, and worn out stuff. I also shopped in some other department stores, La Riniscente, Coin, and Upim. Oviesse is still my favorite. I walked back toward la Scala. I visited the museum attached to the Opera house. The best part was that you were allowed to cross the main lobby and look into the auditorium from one of 2 boxes. The museum was apologizing to people because the houselights weren't on, and you couldn't see the theatre. When I walked in, I could see why the houselights weren't on, there was a tech rehearsal going on. An enormous blue cube was sitting on its point rotating slowly clockwise. Noisily. "Alt!" was yelled, and the cube rotated back. Lighting was also rehearsing, with all kinds of cue changes happening. It seems that the show was being recreated off of videotape. I watched the rehearsal for almost 45 minutes. The rest of the museum wasn't actually that interesting. Verdi's death mask was there, as well as a lot of artwork with operatic subject matter. I thought a far more fascinating museum could have been created given la Scala's history and pedigree. After visiting the bookstore, and kind of desperately searching for things to do, I orienteered myself toward the Leonardo daVinci museum of science and technology. I'm sure this was an interesting museum at some point in its history, but everything was really worn out and quite sad. The main attraction was a hall of daVinci inventions, but I was already quite familiar with everything they presented. Little effort was made to be bilingual, and Italian-only museums are hard enough to make it through if the subjects are good. There was a bunch of stuff about Marconi and Volta, two more of Italy's technology heroes. Their history of the computer exhibit stopped short of 1980. Emerging kind of disgusted from the museum, I found it quite hard to find a good spot to grab lunch. This was not going to be the best afternoon. I did eventually locate a bakery. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, mostly hiking east toward The NetGate, a chain internet cafe that I had prepaid in Venezia. After doing some email and surfing, I got a city bus back toward the duomo. Milano is a larger city than I really wanted to deal with, and it seems remarkably homogenous. Roma is very different, depending on where you are in town. Milano doesn't seem that way at all. I arrived at la Scala on time, and joined a large crowd of people near the doorway to the museum. The act of obtaining my ticket to the opera was an excellent example of the Italian way of doing business. First the list of names was read. Everyone shouted something to indicate their presence. Remember, this was done out on the street, with a crowd of around 200 people. No one could hear very well, and names were often repeated. After our names were called, we stood around. I had latched on to a group of college students from Dartmouth, only with all 4 of us listening could we hear the names. About half-hour later, this time the list was read in a different order. Apparently regulars and friends of the guy with the list get to go first. When your name was called this time, you were handed a number. this number was handed off to someone who let you go up to the ticket window. There, I handed over my 20,000 lira and was issued a ticket, which I immediately handed to an usher who ripped it and sent me up the stairs. The stairs were a side entrance, nowhere near the gracious lobby I'd seen earlier today. My seat was in the second row of the sixth balcony. Luckily enough, I could clearly see the stage from my vantage point. Because theatres like la Scala are a golden horseshoe, the high balconies aren't really that far from the stage, they just have steep viewing angles. The performance was amazing, with the rotating blue cube I'd watched earlier today. Blood dripped down its walls, and the three ghosts were amazing. The music was stunning, and it was the most successful modern staging of an opera I've seen. I began to see why la Scala is so revered. Unfortunately, part of grand opera is performing in many acts with long intermissions. In order to return to the hostel before the fascistically imposed curfew, I had to leave the performance before the fourth act. I was not a happy camper. I did make it back on time, with just minutes to spare. I was brushing my teeth when the lights went off. Stupid hostels.