Europe/2011

A note: everywhere we visited has lots of information online, if you want more details.

After years of putting off visiting mainland Europe, Brenda and I committed ourselves to a 7 1/2 week journey to explore Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, with a stopover at the beginning and end of the trip to visit Brenda's family in Dublin, Ireland. 

First is the story at the end of the trip, our last two days in Italy visiting Rome. After traveling for weeks we were getting tired. We'd been to Lake Como, Bolzano and the Dolomites, Venice, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Cinqua Terra, back to Como, then to Trieste, Ljubljana (capitol city of Slovenia) , Pletvice National Park, Split, and Dubrovnik, all in Croatia. 

So we are now in Dubrovnik, very travel weary after over six weeks on the road. We'd thought to fly from Dubrovnik to Dublin, giving us a few extra days in Croatia to visit some other places, but the flight was sold out. The only alternative was to take the ferry for 7 hours to Italy, then take the midnight train for 6 hours to Rome. That is what we did, all the while lamenting that we were tired and would have little energy for Rome. We got a room early in the morning and slept for 3 hours, giving 1 1/2 days to explore. As soon as we hit the pavement that morning we realized that we were in legendary Rome, the place where much of western thought and politics originated. When we saw the colosseum, the Forum and Palatine Hill, we were completely taken by it all. This was ground zero for over 1000 years of the Roman Empire. 

The next day we were determined to get to the Vatican early to beat the crowds into Saint Peters Basilica. We are not Catholics, but still, the Vatican is ground zero for 1.1 billion. We wanted to see what all the fuss is about. When we entered the huge St. Peters Square fronting the cathedral, we were taken aback to see the place half full with perhaps 150,000 people already in the Square. We asked what was going on and was astounded to find out we had come upon a full blown mass to canonize, or give sainthood, to three deceased people, two Italians, and a nun from Spain. The person giving the mass was none other than the secular and religious leader of those 1.1 Catholics, Pope Benedict. Brenda was raised a Catholic, and neither of us have much good to say about the church, but we found the mass and the 300,000+ people attending to be quite moving in all its grand ceremony. People came to cheer for their favorite saint, wearing hats, waving flags, AND we got seats! When the mass commenced, with a brass band, several choirs, and several hundred bishops and others on the stage, the square became completely silent. 

We managed to get into the line for the Basilica with not much of a wait. This Renaissance and Baroque monster is astounding. It covers six acres, and has the tallest dome in the world at 448 feet, and can hold 60,000 standing people. Inside the ornate decoration and art overwhelm, and holds one of the great sculptures ever, Michaelangelo's Pieta.

We visited a small church where the bones of 4000 friars are lines up and on display in six crypts, all the bones laid out in decorative arrangements.

There is something about Rome. It is crowded and fast, but it is special. Can't really describe it, but we want to go back.

The Cities

The cities feature the "old town" where a multitude of tourist flock. The old towns are surrounded by modern, unattractive sprawl on a massive scale. Venice is the exception, an island slowly sinking into the marsh upon which it was built.  Everyone knows about Venice, the canals and the twisting narrow streets, and St Mark's Square and Cathedral. We found Venice a delightful place to get lost in, just meandering the streets, crossing over canals, and being surprised by a new view at every turn. We visited St Marks, and the Doge's (the governor of Venice) palace. Not to downplay Pisa, but more than one Venice clock tower is leaning. One day we wandered and found three interesting modern art shows. One show featured marble sculptures by a French artist named Fabre. The centerpiece of this fantastic show was a modern Pieta fashioned after the Michealangelo. (see the slide show). 

Venice is crammed with tourists. In one out of the way bar, the server told us that 7 cruise ships a day discharge 40,000 people into the town. But just by walking a bit, we lost the crowds.

Florence features the huge Duomo cathedral and art by the greats of Renaissance art, including Michealangelo David, and the Boticelli painting, The Birth of Venus. We managed to get into both the Academia, full of sculpture including the David, and the Uffize, full of master works by Renaissance artists. (the Venus). As is usual for us, we walked all over old Florence, and had a room just a five minute walk from the Duomo.

We spent half a day in Milan. The immense Cathedral, the 4th largest in Europe, was built to impress. Its like a Gothic wedding cake, numerous spires with statues on top, 2000 statues inside, and 52 mammoth marble pillars holding the whole affair up.

Ljubljana, the capitol city of Slovenia, is the smallest capitol city in Europe of a brand new nation, only forming in 1990 after breaking away from Yugoslavia with only a few minor military skirmishes. The old city along the river is a wonderful place to people watch over a coffee or wine,  a vibrant city full of young people. We took a day trip to Lake Bled from here (see the Nature section)

Split, on the Croatian coast, boasts an old town built right into the mammoth Diocletian's Palace (190 by 160 meters), built in the forth Century as a retirement home for the last Pagan Roman Emperor.

Dubrovnik, also on the coast, is a wonderful walled city full of narrow lanes and Medieval buildings, no cars and full of atmosphere (and tourists).

The massive mile long wall is a wonderful place to walk and see the city and coastline. As Croatia broke from Dubrovnik, the Yugoslavs shelled the city for 8 months, but the city resisted, and finally Croatia became a nation. All the buildings have been repaired and the city is thriving. 

Nature

We enjoyed mixing city explorations with visits to more natural areas. We were invited to stay at the old Castelli villa by our friends the Laura and Emilio of Sebastopol. The place has been in the Castelli family for generations and the two villas on the property, right on Lake Como, were built in the early 1800.

Lake Como is surrounded by villages and towns. Our little village, Bellano, is off the tourist map, but nearby the famous Bellagio sits on a point. Lake Como is a glacial lake, formed by glaciers flowing out of the Alps, and it is surrounded by ridges and mountains. The ridges all around the lake are terraced for farming, grapes and olive mostly, cultivated for centuries, but most of the terraces are now overgrown and the many stone farmhouses are abandoned. The region is laced with ancient stone pathways connecting villages and farmsteads. The park above Bellano boasts 7000 kilometers of stone walls and many miles of stone paths. We were overjoyed to be able to walk these paths. Many of them have small Catholic shrines along the trail.

We walk in a wonderful region called the Alpe di Siuse, the largest alpine meadow region in Europe, in the Dolomite Mountains. We stayed in the small city of Bolzano, which has a strong German influence, because it was part of the Austrian empire until WW 1, when Austria had to cede the region to Italy. We took a tram high into the Dolomites only to be greeted by 6 inches of fresh snow, but the locals were on it, clearing the trails with a plow so the hikers could hike. After a great lunch at a hut along the trail, we made our way back to the tram and returned to Bolzano.

Cinqua Terra is a special place. The national park comprises 5 small villages along a stunning 7 miles of coastline. The villages are car free but connected by trains tunneled through the mountainside. Old trails, much like those at Lake Como, connect the villages and trails wind up the ridges past small villages and farmsteads. Many of the terraces are still cultivated in the stony dry soil for wine grapes. It was a joy to walk these old paths with stunning vistas of a wild coastline. Every evening in Vernazza, the custom is to take a bottle of wine to the harbor (2 minute walk from our room) and watch the sunset, accompanied by applause as the sun sank below the Mediterranean.

It took a long bus ride to get to Pletvice (PLEET-veet-seh) National Park in Croatia, and it was worth the ride. The main feature is a series of 16 lakes connected by many waterfalls. The lakes and waterfalls have been formed over the last 10,000 years by flowing through travertine deposits and building dikes and ledges. Our 12 mile hike through the valley was stunning. 

Some interesting encounters

We got lost on trails on more than one occasion which led us to asked a local for directions. On one walk we got lost three time. In the two tiny villages someone managed to help up find our way without any english. The trail followed a clear path which ended at a farm. With no sign we were unsure of which path to take. We soon ran into the sheepherder who lived in the farmhouse. He seemed to be from another era with a ragged hat and red beard herding his sheep along the path. He took us to the right path, and indicted by picking a stone that we simply had to follow the stone path.

On a walking tour of Diocethians palace in Split, between stops the very informative guide told me privately that he was an out of work history teacher because he was a leftist and the Croatian government had turned very conservative.

We rented a room outside the walls of Dubrovnik from an older couple who recounted to us the shelling, the terror, lack of water and electricity and the 22 explosions occurring near their house in 1990, when the Yugoslavian army led by Serbs laid siege to the city. 

A few Brenda comments

We very much enjoyed the fresh fish and produce markets in Slovenia, Croatia and Bellano. In Slovenia, you could buy fresh fish of all kinds from at least a dozen vendors. In these three locations, we had an apartment to stay in and could  cook our own food which was a welcome change from eating three meals a day in restaurants.

The day we arrived in  Vernazza (Cinqua Terra) a couple were getting married and we quickly learned that the custom is for the couple to go to a balcony in the town and toss down pounds of candy for the crowd to catch, this went on for about  15 minutes. On the same day we came across an art opening with lots of food and wine, and the fishermen were celebrating their careers as fishermen in the evening by walking through the village from restaurant to restaurant where food and drink were provided to everyone who came along with them, it was a very festive day.