I Wish This Were an April Fools Joke

I’ve withheld this blog post until the end of our time in Italy because I really wanted to give the Italians a fair shake. After spending a month in Italy, I certainly cannot call myself an expert on Italian customs or culture, but I feel I have enough information to merit a blog post about what we experienced while we were here.

Rather than begin by making the judgments for you, I will simply tell you five of the countless incidents that happened to us while we were in Italy and let you form your opinion on your own. Chronologically, I will begin in Rome.

1. As you have read in our previous blog post, we had terrible troubles getting a lost suitcase back from Alitalia after we arrived in Rome. Our hotel didn’t provide much help, not telling us until we spoke to a manager three days after arriving that Alitalia frequently loses luggage and that no promise of the luggage arriving is worth believing.

However, this is not the only misinformation our hotel gave us. On Friday afternoon, we had asked a man working the reception/concierge desk if FedEx was open on the weekend. He assured us they were and that mailing to the U.S. was a piece of cake. The hotel had a scale that they could measure the weight of what we wanted to mail, they would tell us the price, and FedEx would come to pick it up.

The manager happened to walk by while the receptionist was telling us this, and questioned whether or not FedEx was really open on the weekend.

“Yes,” the receptionist assured us and his manager. “FedEx is definitely open tomorrow.”

Believing this was the case, we headed out for the day and intended to mail some of our souvenirs the next day. The next day, Saturday, we found out that FedEx is not open on the weekend. It was a bit of a problem for us since we were going to be leaving Rome
Monday and wouldn’t have much time to deal with FedEx at that point.

As we were leaving the hotel on Saturday, we noticed that the same receptionist was working, and we decided to let him know FedEx was not open on the weekend. When Dave told him this, the receptionist completely denied ever having a conversation with us about FedEx and began to argue vehemently with Dave over it.

Since we could not go to FedEx over the weekend, we set out to do it before our plane on Monday. Our intention was to have the hotel hold our bags while we took a taxi to FedEx. We were going to close out our bill at the hotel, but didn’t have enough cash on hand to pay for a tour we had taken during our stay.

We explained to the receptionist that we would go to an ATM while we were at FedEx and get enough cash to pay. Our luggage was still at the hotel, so clearly we would come back to get our luggage and pay at that point.

The receptionist was very insistent that we pay for our tour immediately and told us we needed to find an ATM close-by. I explained to her we were in a hurry because we had thought we could go to FedEx over the weekend and didn’t find out until Saturday we
couldn’t.

“Who told you that? FedEx is never open on the weekend,” she retorted.
“A receptionist here told us that,” I said.
“No. I don’t believe you. No one here would have told you that.”
“Well, yes, someone did tell us that here or we would have gone this weekend. But now we have to go today and we don’t have much time before our flight. Our luggage is all here. We obviously can’t leave Rome without paying.”
“No, no one told you that here. I don’t believe you, and you need to find an ATM around here to go to. You are not allowed to go to FedEx without paying for the tour.”

Dave set out to find an ATM near the hotel to no avail. When he returned, he told the receptionist we were going to go to FedEx and would find an ATM there. She just nodded her head.

On our way out the door, Dave requested they call for a taxi to pick us up at a designated time when we got back. Taxis to and from the airport are regulated by the government to charge 40 euros one way, but we knew we wouldn’t get that price. Since arriving in Italy, we have heard every manner of excuse from taxi drivers.

The meter is high because:
- night driving
- we start the meter the moment the hotel calls no matter where we are
- heavy luggage
- I had to drive all the way to the airport to pick you up.
- Now that I have dropped you off, I will have to drive back to the airport to pick someone else up.
- I have to pay a fee to use the road.
- This is outside the zone.

The list could go on, but it isn’t exactly the point. Dave asked the receptionist how much a taxi to the airport would cost us (knowing the government regulated price).

“Ninety euros, at least,” she told us. Translated, that’s $135. The airport was 30 minutes from our hotel.

“I won’t pay ninety euros for a taxi,” Dave responded. “I won’t pay above fifty.”

Miraculously, we got her to get us a cab for 50 euros.

2. We arrived in Naples, our second stop. We left the airport to get in the taxi line. The line was converging in the center between two exits, and we got in the line nearest the exit we had just left from.

After waiting fifteen minutes or so, we got to where our line met the other line. At this point, a woman started to tell us we were in the wrong line and we needed to get to the back of the line she was in. We tried to explain there were two lines and indicated to the long line that had formed behind us.

She continued to insist loudly we get to the back of the line and started to point out to the other people around her how we were cutting in line. It was very confusing to us since there was clearly other people who had been in our line now in the center line and people behind us. For whatever reason, she was picking out us to choose to say we were cutting. We had to battle our way into the center line.

3. We were outside the duomo in Milan when Dave noticed a slushy stand. He ordered a slushy, but the man only filled it a little over ¾. Dave asked if he could fill it all the way, but the man didn’t seem to understand. When words don’t work, gestures are usually universal, so Dave pointed to the slushy machine and put his cup near it.

The man hit Dave’s hand (hard), and told him no. Dave isn’t one to back down, and he insisted his cup be filled all the way before he paid for it. After all, who wants to pay 3 euros ($4.50) for a slushy if it isn’t full?

4. I was standing in line at the train station to buy tickets to Bergamo. The line was rather long, and two twenty-something girls were ahead of me in line. For whatever reason, they decided to leave the line. About five minutes later, the girls returned. Without even looking at me, one of the girls literally pushed me out of the way to get back in line. I wasn’t sure quite what to do, and thought maybe this was protocol in Italy. To be fair, I don’t think these girls were Italians.

When I reached the front of the line, I waved Dave over to pay for the tickets. The woman behind me got rather upset.

“You cannot get two tickets. Only one.”
“Well, he’s my husband,” I told her. “We are buying the same ticket. We pay together.”
“You cannot do that.”
“Well, we have to do that. We are together.”

She was already upset at me because I wouldn’t let her buy her ticket before me. She was in a hurry to catch her train, but our train left at the same time as hers. We proceeded to buy the ticket while she gesticulated and spoke rapidly to the people she was with about us. While we were waiting for the woman working to issue our ticket, the woman standing behind us began to slap Dave’s arm.

“Hurry up!”
“We are going as fast as we can,” I told her.
“No, you aren’t.”
“I’m sorry, but we are.”
“No, you aren’t. I’m going to miss my train.”
“I already told you our train leaves at the same time as yours.”
The conversation ended there as we got our tickets issued and left the line.

5. We had our hotel issue tickets to Florence for us so we didn’t have to fight the line at the train station. When we arrived at the station, we couldn’t figure out where our train was leaving from. The train wasn’t listed on the board. Dave waited with our luggage while I went to find where our train left from.

I didn’t want to cut in line at the ticket stand to ask, and I couldn’t find any other personnel to ask either. I noticed a short ticket line; there was only one girl in line. So I stood behind her and waited. As I was waiting, I noticed the next line open up. The open line was merely six steps from the line I was in, so I walked over there. As I got there, I realized the woman only did currency conversion, and I turned around to get back in line.
In the ten seconds I had been out of line, two men had gotten in the line. I remembered how you can shove your way into a line, but decided that wasn’t the best course of action. I smiled at the men and told them I had gotten out of line for a moment because I thought I could go to the next counter but she couldn’t help me. I explained I already had my ticket and just had a brief question.

“You aren’t in line. Get behind us.”
“I just have a quick question. I was in line; I just got out for one moment.”
“You were in line. You aren’t any more. Get to the back.”
“I already have my ticket. I just have a quick question. It will take one moment.”
“Stupid, typical American. You think you can do whatever you want.”
“No, I just was here. I got out for one moment. I already have my ticket. I just need to know where my train leaves from. And everyone here cuts line. I got shoved out of a line for the train the other day.”
“Whatever. That’s America. You’re in Italy now.” He rolled his eyes in disdain.
“No, that happened to me here in Italy. Lots of people in Italy are rude.” (I was sick and tired of this by this point.)
“Whatever. No, they aren’t.”
The woman ahead of me in line walked away, so I approached the ticket counter.
“I’m on the 14:00 to Florence. Where do I go?”
“The board will say Salerno.”
“Thanks.” And I left.

I’m going to stop here, although I could continue with other incidents like the waiter who told Dave he must hate all lasagna since he didn’t like the lasagna served at their restaurant or the bystander who responded to my question to Dave of which boat in the harbor I should wait by for him with, “the only boat.” (There were probably twenty boats in the harbor.) Or the man who wouldn’t issue us a bus ticket because he was scratching his lottery ticket. Or the woman who ran my feet over with her baby stroller rather than move out of the path of where I happened to be standing. Or the girl who practically refused to make me a Nutella crepe. Or the time we waited one hour for our food to come at a restaurant while the Italians who arrived twenty minutes after us finished an entire meal: drinks, appetizer, and entrees (after an hour we finally left). The dirty looks and cold shoulders have literally been countless. I have not had a single Italian person initiate a conversation, smile in passing or step aside if we are going to collide with one another.

I hadn’t heard anything about Italians before coming to Italy, but our encounter was confirmed by several people we spoke with on the trip.
A Pakistani man living in Italy for three years told us he has come to hate the Italians because they have been so mean to him during his time here.
A Canadian woman living in Italy with her family said they are incredibly indifferent to all foreigners, but have a particular dislike for all Americans.
A Brazilian woman we met has lived in Italy for eight years. Despite that she speaks Italian and is, in fact, half-Italian, she still finds herself treated poorly by many Italians who can tell she is a foreigner. She also vouches that the Italians are not kind at all to tourists.
A Mexican woman who has been to Italy twenty-three times told us she has found the Italian culture very cold, but they are particularly prejudiced against Americans.
On our way through customs when we returned to Denver, we ended up in line next to a man who lived in Italy full-time for a while and still owns a house there. He went to far as to call the Italian people racist and xenophobic.
An Isreali woman told us she had been so discouraged by the mentality of the Italians that she had multiple times wanted to just hole up in her hotel room rather than go out and face them. “I live in a war zone,” she told us. “And if there is any place for people to have their guard up and be cold, that would be it. Yet, I have never experienced in Israel the treatment I have experienced in Italy.”

We have similar sentiments. We imagined apprehension toward us in a country like China where there is significant cultural and political tension between our two countries, but we were met with kindness. Egyptians and Moroccans are well aware of the tension that lies between America and the Arab/ Muslim world. But I have never felt more welcomed in a society than I felt there. We have heard comments everywhere we’ve gone that the people don’t particularly like the American government or policies, but these same people are able to differentiate between us and our government. In a country like Italy that shares so many political, cultural, and religious ties, we thought there would be more common ground. It’s unfortunately not the case.

Italy is a gorgeous country with an enormous amount of history, and I can completely understand why people would want to come here. My recommendation would be to go somewhere else. In addition to feeling friendless in the country, Italy is not a very clean place. Graffiti litters everything (one Burger King we ate at had graffiti from at least 2006 still on the walls and chairs of the restaurant), we have been served off dishes used by other people and not cleaned, and we’ve sat at tables with food leftover from other people on the tables, to name a few. The mafia runs the trash business in southern Italy (strange, I know), and trash is everywhere in the country. It’s unfortunate to walk down a charming street only to want to hurry through because of the smell.

If you are still determined to go to Italy, at least wait until the dollar is stronger. We have been charged between $6-10 for a can of Coke, and a meal at a streetside cafe is running us around $20/person for just a main course and water. The other day I paid $15 for an ice cream cone because I didn't look at the receipt before taking a lick.

Italy isn’t all bad, of course. As you have seen from the previous blog posts and photos, we have had a marvelous time while we have been in Italy. And not all Italians are mean people. As in any culture, you cannot define a whole country by the behavior of some. Sadly, though, we can count the friendly encounters we had on our fingers. We have seen a lot of incredible sights and learned a lot. There is definitely a lot Italy has to offer, but we won’t be returning any time soon. We would rather go to a country where we feel respected and welcomed.

Milan & Florence

As I’m sure you could have guessed by the absence of a blog post, Dave and I have been keeping very busy in Italy. Tomorrow is our last day here. I can’t believe the trip is coming to an end already.

As you have seen from the photos, we had a lovely time in Milan. Milan itself is very similar to all big cities, although there is more shopping than you could imagine. We had a great time relaxing and looking in the shops, and Dave got lots of shoes! He beat me in shoe shopping, believe it or not!

The oddest thing we found about Milan was that the siesta is still taken full advantage of. The siesta is a European tradition of closing the shops in the middle of the afternoon to take a break. We didn’t feel this a lot in much of Italy, but it definitely affected our time in Milan. The most difficult part about it was finding a restaurant that was open in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes we would get caught up in whatever we were doing and not want to eat until 3 pm. Unfortunately for us, this was not a reality. All the restaurants closed between 2:30 – 7:30, and so we were left hungry until they opened again. It’s a very different mentality from the 24-hour restaurants we have in the U.S. And we found it very interesting that Milan is the only place we really felt this play significantly into our trip since it is considered the most worldly of all the Italian cities we visited.

While in Milan, we got the opportunity to take several day trips outside the city. The first was to the small town of Bergamo. It was a fun, small town to visit.

The more memorable of the two day trips was to Lake Como. Como is in the very northern part of Italy, and we accidentally missed the stop to Como and ended up in Switzerland. We didn’t stay there long. We walked around a bit, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and headed back down to Como.

Como and Bellagio, the two towns we visited on the lake, were very enjoyable to visit because they weren’t as overrun by tourists as the other places we visited. We ended up with a perfect day to visit the lake. The weather was beautiful.

After leaving Milan, we headed to our last stop (and current location), Florence. Florence has a lot of museums to visit, and we ended up in Florence during “free week,” which means none of the museums charge to get in. This has turned out to be a blessing and a curse. It’s great not to have to pay to see anything, but the lines since everything is free are atrocious. Unfortunately, this means we haven’t gotten to see nearly as much as we would have liked to see in our limited time in Florence.

We did get to see Michelangelo’s David, and that was really incredible. The sculpture is truly a masterpiece. It’s so realistic (except that it’s 17 feet tall) that you really feel it could come to life before your eyes. Each and every part of his body from his nostrils to his toes is completely sculpted to perfection with so much attention to detail. Even Dave was completely captivated by it.

On our first day in Florence, we took a day trip to Pisa. The main attraction in Pisa is, of course, the leaning tower. It was actually really fun to see, and even more fun to walk up. You don’t anticipate it, but walking up the tower actually really messes with your sense of equilibrium. You start to feeling as if you are, well, leaning. And the view from the top is incredibly pretty.

We will be spending our last day in Italy in Siena and San Gimignano. We head back to the States on April 1.

March 20. 2008

Today was another sunny, cool day in Venice, and it was also our last full day here. We leave tomorrow for Milan on the train.

In addition to wrapping up some odds and ends, we finally went on our gondola ride today. The forty-five minute ride took us around the city’s many canals. It was a beautiful day for it, and it was relaxing and fun to look at the city from a new perspective.

Venice has been a unique and fun city to visit, and we are looking forward to our next stop in Italy. Only two more stops before we are headed back to the U.S.A.!

Venice, Italy

When I wrote my last post, Dave and I were both feeling overwhelmed with all the complications that had arisen with our travels. There have definitely been a lot of ups and downs on this trip, and they were starting to take our toll on us.

After the uncomfortable nine hour train ride to Venice, we walked out of the train station to see the beautiful Grand Canal. Our spirits were lifted almost instantly when we arrived in this quiet city.

There are no cars in Venice. Instead, people transport themselves on foot or boat. It’s a different way to live, and it feels peaceful to share winding alleys with only other pedestrians. The streets are narrow and lined with tiny shops. It’s really a gorgeous place to experience.

The biggest tourist attraction in Venice is Piazza San Marco. The piazza holds Basilica di San Marco and a palace. The basilica is beautiful, but it is nothing compared to the enormous basilicas we saw in Rome.

What I have found most fascinating about Piazza San Marco are the pigeons. There are hundreds of pigeons in the piazza, but the fascinating thing is that people feed them. There are vendors that sell corn to the tourists, and hundreds of people stand around in the square feeding the pigeons. Somehow, I find it both disgusting to see people feeding these dirty birds and fascinating as I wonder why adults are participating in this activity. But that’s just me, I guess. Apparently, I am one of the very few who think that though.

We have heard that you can go to Piazza San Marco around 9 am when the city feeds the birds. They set food in nets and catch about 80-100 of the birds that land. Our guidebook says you will be reminded of Hitchcock’s The Birds. The locals say the government says they take the captured pigeons to a “nice farmer,” which is awfully reminiscent of the nice farm childhood pets went to when they really died. The locals are under the impression they are killed due to overpopulation. These pigeons are so fat I’m surprised the don’t just explode. Okay, enough bird-hating.

Dave and I have been spending our time in Venice just enjoying the ambience of the city. There is plenty to see here, but we have been keeping ourselves fascinated just exploring the pleasant, tiny streets, shopping, and eating delicious food. It’s been a relaxing break from the overwhelming sightseeing of Rome and Naples.

Naples, Italy

As I’m sure you can see from the photos, southern Italy is stunning. Although we were stationed in Naples during our stay, we spent nearly all our time there outside the city.

After our day in Pompeii, Dave and I headed to the island of Capri and the town of Sorrento for the day. You get to both places by ferry from Naples, so the drive over is very pretty.

Once we arrived in Capri, we took the bus up to the highest town on the island, Anacapri. From there, we took a chair lift to the top of the island, where a small park is set up. It’s a beautiful ride up on the chair lift, and the views from the top are breathtaking. We wish we would have had more time to spend at the top, but unfortunately, we had to hurry back down in order to catch the ferry to Sorrento.

Sorrento is south of Naples, at the beginning of the famed Amalfi Coast. We had heard about the beauty of the town from several people before arriving in Italy, and indeed it felt like a fairytale town in many ways. You hike up to the town (or take a bus), and from there you can wander along shop-lined streets.

The coolest thing we saw in Sorrento was an old mill. The mill stood in a deep cavern below the city, and you could peer over a railing at it. It had moss grown all over it, and it looked surreal.

We headed back to Sorrento after visiting Naples, and the next day we spent the afternoon at the island of Ischia. We didn’t have much time in Ischia, however, we did get to see Castello Aragonese, a castle dating back to 474 B.C.

Our adventures in Naples began after we got back to from Ischia. Our flight on Alitalia was supposed to depart at 8:50 pm. At least that’s what I had written down. I was wrong. Our flight actually left at 8:50 am. Big mistake.

Hurriedly, Dave and I rushed to the train station to see if we could catch the overnight train to Venice, our next stop. After paying a cab driver way more than we should have, we got to the ticket stand at the train station ten minutes too late to catch the train. There was another train to Bologna where we could transfer to a Venice train leaving in three hours so we decided to buy tickets.

What we didn’t know was that the Naples train station is notoriously full of criminals. Naples, in general, is a rough town, much of it run by the Italian mafia. We didn’t feel unsafe in Naples, but our view of the Italians was rapidly deteriorating during our time there. No one was kind to us, and we felt we constantly had to be on our toes to avoid being taken advantage of. Two incidents occurred at the train station.

1. After spending three hours in a rundown McDonalds, we took our (heavy) bags and headed to find where our train was leaving from. On the way over, a man asked Dave where we were headed, and Dave responded, “Balogna.” The man began to follow us to our train, and he kept insisting we were going the wrong way. When we got to the track, we stopped, and he pulled out a book showing us we were in the wrong station. He kept telling us we needed to go to another station fifteen minutes away where our train would depart from. At this point, our train was set to leave in twenty minutes. Another man came up and continued to insist we were in the wrong place. We didn’t buy it, but another woman overheard and went with them.

I don’t know what happened to that woman. She obviously missed the train, but we later found out that this is a common trick for criminals to get tourists out of the train station. Sometimes they will just drive them to some other random location and charge them lots of money for it, but other times they will steal all your things, pull knives on you, etc.

2. Once we began boarding the train, a man behind us boarding started to help us with our luggage. After helping us into the train, he was extremely insistent about sitting in the same small car as us (each seats six people). I believe it was a real Godsend when an English-speaking journalist named Luigi also sat in our same car and began conversing with Dave.

After about twenty minutes of their conversation with no end in sight, the man (who incidentally had no luggage with him) left the train car. Luigi told us the Naples trains are dangerous to ride in. Men will try to catch women alone in bathrooms to hurt them and they also have sprays that put the women to sleep. In addition, they will try to steal the belongings of people while the people are sleeping, although usually just to women who are alone or elderly people. We believe Luigi’s presence may have saved us from some incident with the curious man sitting originally in our train car.

We arrived safely in Venice, an incredibly beautiful city. We are looking forward to the beautiful sights we will see while we are here.

A Buried City: Pompeii

Today Dave and I had our first excursion in Naples. We went to Pompeii, a city that was buried under lava when Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. The city was buried for a long time and finally rediscovered in the 1700s. The city is still surprisingly intact considering the age. It was preserved by the lava. The volcano killed 3,000 people, and is still an active volcano.

After visiting Pompeii, we visited Mt. Vesuvius. We had to hike quite a ways up the volcano to get to the top in hopes of seeing the crater, but unfortunately the view was completely obstructed by bad fog. I guess I still got to work off some of the pizza and pasta I’ve been eating here in Italy!

Rome, Italy

We arrived last night in Naples, and happily all our luggage arrived with us. We are here for four days before heading to our next destination: Venice.

Our time in Rome included lots and lots of sightseeing, and as promised in the photo album, I am going to just go through each sight with a brief description of what it was we saw. It was all very fascinating.

The first, and one of the most fascinating, places we saw was Vatican City. Both Dave and I had never imagined the Vatican as a museum. However, the Vatican has one of the world’s greatest art collections. You could spend days just wandering through the decorous galleries.

Of course, the most famous work of art at the Vatican is the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. I don’t have a photo of if since we weren’t supposed to take pictures in the chapel, but it’s incredible. It even captured Dave’s imagination, and he isn’t very interested in art.

Michelangelo desired to be a sculptor, and when he was young he found a piece of marble into which he sculpted a beautiful cherub (angel). He had a friend who was willing to take the art into Rome and sell it for him, but he suggested Michelangelo could make more money if he punctured holes and dirtied the piece so people would think it was old. His friend turned out to be right, and the pope bought the piece for 200 shekels.

Later, the pope discovered the fraud and sought out Michelangelo to punish him. When he found him, Michelangelo was just as shocked as he had only received 30 shekels for his piece. Because Michelangelo was so talented, the pope decided to commission him to create 44 sculptures for his tomb. He hadn’t even completed one when he was taken off the project to create the Sistine Chapel.

After wandering through the Vatican Museum for four hours, we found ourselves in St. Peter’s Square, where the pope gives his audiences. St. Peter’s Basilica stands in St. Peter’s Square. This enormous and breathtaking basilica is almost more than one can take in at one visit (especially after spending four hours in the Vatican Museum). Raphael, Michelangelo, Bramante, and Maderno all have work exhibited in this church.

Dave and I happened to be at St. Peter’s during Mass, and so we sat through part of the service. Despite not being Catholic and the Mass being in Italian, we still found ourselves awed by the whole experience.

Our second day in Rome we visited a lot of Catholic churches. The first one was Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, where the Pope comes to celebrate Mass on some holidays. It was built in 314 AD by Constantine.

Across the street from this basilica is the Santuario della Scala Santa. It is believed that these steps, transported from Jerusalem to Rome by Constantine, were the steps Jesus climbed before Pontius Pilate sentenced him to crucifixion. Some, however, believe the steps were only from the 4th Century. The steps are now covered in wood and draw pilgrims from all over who climb the twenty-eight steps on their knees.

Our next stop was Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, one of Rome’s four major basilicas and home to the tomb of Bernini, Italy’s most important baroque sculptor.

Our last stop for the day was at the Basilica di San Pietro di Vincoli. This interesting church holds two important items. The first is the chains that bound Peter while in Palestine.

The second is Michelangelo’s Moses. Moses was created as the first of the 44 figures for Pope Julius II’s tomb. In this sculpture, Moses is coming down off the mountain with the ten commandments to see the Isrealites worshipping the golden calf. Hence his stern face. Michelangelo didn’t even get to finish Moses before he was taken off the project to paint the Sistine Chapel. He came back to the work in his 50s and finished it. Michelangelo studied dead bodies in his spare time and is praised for his anatomy shown here on Moses’ arms. The face of Moses is the face of Pope Julius II. And the crack on Moses’ left knee is said to have been created by Michelangelo himself when he finished the piece. It looked so lifelike to him that he threw his hammer at it and said, “Speak to me!” Which, of course, it didn’t, but he crack from the hammer is still there.

The next day we visited the Pantheon, the only ancient building still intact in Rome. The incredible thing about the Pantheon is the perfectly spherical dome resting on a cylinder. The building is exactly 142 ft high and 142 ft wide. A open circle at the center of the dome is used for ventilation, and on the day we visited it was raining, and the rain poured in through the opening at the top. Raphael is buried in the Pantheon.

Castel Sant’Angelo was built in the 2nd Century as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian. From the inside and out it looks like a big fortress. An underground passage links Castel Sant’Angelo with the Vatican so popes could flee here if they were in danger. The rooms in the fortress now house art museums, but they were used for a wide variety of other purposes during its history, including torturing captives and housing the mistress and children of Pope Alexander VI.

Trevi Fountain was based on the design of Nicolo Salvi and completed in 1762. The main figure in the design is Neptunus Rex with two allegorical figures representing health and fertility on either side of him.

Near Trevi Fountain are the famous Spanish Steps. The steps, that I know of, don’t have any particular historical value, but they are beautiful, and once you reach the bottom of them you are welcomed to a wonderful world of shopping – Dior, Gucci, Prada, etc.

Near the Spanish Steps, however, is the Keats-Shelley house where John Keats died of tuberculosis after moving to Rome. It’s not all that interesting unless you are interested in literature, which I am.

A few short blocks from the Spanish Steps is Piazza del Popolo, where it is said the ashes of Nero were enshrined until 11th Century residents started complaining to the Pope about his ghost.

Piazza del Popolo houses several basilicas, including Santa Maria del Popolo, the home to two Carvaggio paintings. The first depicts the crucifixion of Peter and the second depicts the blinding of Saul by God before his conversion to Christianity. You can probably Google better pictures than I was able to take if you are interested.

The Colosseum doesn’t really need explanation. It was used as an arena for the Romans to watch people battle exotic animals. Normally the people were criminals, and there is much doubt about whether Christians were fed to the lions here. About 20% of the people put in the arena with the animals died.

Near the Colosseum are other sites of ancient Rome. This was where it was all happening in the ancient world, although only ruins remain. It’s still quite fascinating to wander through them and imagine how the ancient Romans may have lived.

One part of ancient Rome is Circo Massimo, where chariot races and other entertainment took place. At the far end of the field is “the killing field” where Christians were martyred, criminals killed, etc.
“There is no monument there,” our tour guide told us. “But I guess that is the monument. Nothing will ever be built there.”
That silenced us as we looked at the empty field.
“And last year there was a sold-out Genesis concert right there.”
Ok, that ruined it.

Near Circo Massimo is Santa Maria in Cosmedin, a small church with two famous items. The first item on the outside is the Mouth of Truth, a large disk said to chop off the hand of anyone who didn’t tell the disk the truth. To keep the legend alive, priests used to stand behind the mouth every once in a while with an axe or scorpions and, yes, chop off someone’s hand.

The disk was made famous in the movie Roman Holiday when Gregory Peck stuck his hand in and then brought it back out with his hand inside his coat sleeve, causing Audrey Hepburn to scream.

Inside the church is the skull of St. Valentine. Valentine used to marry Roman soldiers to their girlfriends secretly. At the time, it was illegal for Roman soldiers to marry, primarily because the Roman government didn’t want to have to pay widow’s fees should the soldiers die in battle. When the government found out Valentine was doing this, they beheaded him on February 14, and his skull now rests on display in Santa Maria in Cosmedin.

One of our last stops in Rome was the Christian Catacombs. The Catacombs are outside the ancient Roman walls and they are where many Christian martyrs were buried. The whole thing is 20 km and four stories. It’s amazing to imagine. They used to let the bones just lie where people could see them, but tourists started stealing the bones, so they are no longer visible any more.

Our last stop in Rome was Basilica di San Clemente. The interesting thing about this church was that it was built unwittingly atop a secular house and pagan temple. You can explore the eerie basement of the church on your own.

As you can see, we saw so much history in Rome. Whew. I hope to keep up with this blog and have a new one sometime after we leave Naples. Ciao!

Lost Luggage, or Why Italy Needs a Better Business Bureau

This drama warrants its own post. Dave and I flew from Casablanca to Rome on Monday, March 3 on Alitalia Airlines. Out of all the teeny tiny airlines we have flown in Asia and Africa, you wouldn’t imagine the first European airline we fly to be the one we have problems with.

After traveling since 4 am, we arrived in Rome around 4 pm. As you could imagine, we were tired and ready to get to our hotel to get some work done and go to bed. We got through a very slow immigration line to the baggage claim. Along with several other people from our Casablanca flight, we were left without one of our four bags when the baggage claim carousel stopped turning. The other few people on our flight ended up finding their bags on another carousel (odd, I know), but, alas, Dave and I were still without our suitcase. Actually, it was my suitcase. We went over to the Alitalia Customer Service Desk to figure out what to do.

We were greeted with a line of nearly one hundred people. I promise I’m not exaggerating. We decided to cut the line to find out what was going on.

“I’m sorry,” I was told by an employee. “You are going to have to wait in the line. There is a whole plane that has not received their luggage.”

Yes, folks, somehow Alitalia lost a whole planeful of luggage. I don’t know how you do that either. Then the woman agreed to have one of her colleagues in the office help us, and after filling out some mandatory paperwork, we were told to call with our hotel’s address and phone number and they would keep in touch. They didn’t currently know where my bag was.

We got to our hotel, and they called the airline to leave our contact information with them. Still no status on my bag.

The next morning I was informed by the hotel that my bag was at the Rome airport and would be at the hotel in the next twenty-four hours. What a relief! You don’t realize how lost you are without your luggage until it’s lost.

Twenty four hours later I was still without my luggage. I talked to the hotel receptionist who told me it would be here in twenty four hours. Again. I said I wanted to speak with Alitalia. He connected me to them.

The woman I spoke with told me I was supposed to come down and pick up my luggage from the airport. I told her there was absolutely no way I would spend 100 Euros and my afternoon going to the airport to pick up my bag when they were the ones who lost in the first place.

“I’m sorry, but it says right here on your account that you will come pick it up. I don’t really have time to deal with this right now because we have about sixty people who just arrived from Korea and all their bags are lost.”

“Why would I come pick the bag up?” I demanded. “It will cost me a fortune, and I don’t want to go to the airport this afternoon. You should bring it here.”

“We usually do, but there’s a note in the account that you will come pick it up.”

She agreed to change the note, and I decided to talk to the hotel manager to find out what had happened between the hotel and the airline. Massimo was as concerned as we were about the status of my bag because he had seen this far too many times.

“Alitalia is awful! This happens 2-3 times a week at this hotel alone,” he raved as I think only Italians can. “I went to Paris on them and I never got my bag back ever. I am going to call them right now.”

Massimo raved on the phone to Alitalia. “We had an Irish couple who stayed here one time for a week. Their bag never arrived, and then the airline dropped it off a few days after they went back to Ireland,” he told us while he was on hold. And then, “They say there is a problem with the customs declaration.”

“No,” Dave countered. “We filled that out. I filled that out.”

More Italian raving on the phone. “You speak to them,” Massimo hands me the phone.

“Hello?”

“Your bag will be at the hotel in twenty four hours,” the voice on the other end told me.

“That what they keep telling me, but it never comes.”

“Call back in an hour.”

“Why?”

“In an hour I can tell you more about your bag.”

Massimo, Dave, and I look at each other in frustration.

“You go enjoy your time in Rome,” Massimo tells us. “I will call Alitalia every thirty minutes. I hate them.”

That evening, my bag had still not arrived, and Alitalia was still saying it would be at the hotel in twenty four hours. I talked to them again.

“Your bag will be there in twenty-four hours,” the woman at Alitalia told me.

“That’s what they keep telling me,” I repeated. “But it never comes.”

“Do you want your bag or not?”

“Of course I want it. Why wouldn’t I want it?”

“Then it will be there in twenty-four hours.”

The next morning, the fifth of March, my bag had still not arrived. Alitalia was still telling us it would be there in twenty-four hours. When we were out sightseeing, we decided I should buy some new clothes since I had been in the same ones for three days with no end in sight. For those of you interested, I got two pairs of Miss Sixty jeans, a pink cardigan, a white button down shirt, a pink t-shirt with two cute girls on it, a black t-shirt that says “They say I follow fashion, but it’s fashion that follows me,” and a yellow jacket. We got back to the hotel late in the evening. Still no bag.

The next morning: still no bag. But at least I had fresh clothes.

On March 6 in the afternoon, my bag finally arrived at the hotel. It no longer rolled as one of the wheels was broken, but it was there. I had never been happier to see my luggage in my life.

Moral of the story: Don’t fly Alitalia. Pray for the safety of our luggage as we fly them four more times before leaving Italy. Ciao!

Skoura, Morocco

After feeling slightly discouraged from our trying time in Marrakech, Dave and I were wary of heading to the mountains for our week in Skoura. We didn’t know exactly what to expect.

We drove four hours through the Atlas Mountains to get to Skoura, where our hotel was located. After driving through the mountains, our driver veered off into narrow alleyways and beaten dirt roads. We soon came to a river, which our driver proceeded to drive through. At one point, Dave and I turned to each other with a nervous look in our eyes.

“Do they really have wifi here?” he asked me.

That’s exactly what I was thinking, and I shrugged. “That’s what they tell me.”

He just shook his head. Our driver wound through more narrow roads and stopped finally in front of a big wall of mud and straw.

“Here is your hotel,” he told us.

Looks, of course, can be deceiving, because behind this wall of mud and straw was the most incredible hotel Dave and I have ever stayed at. The boutique hotel, called Dar Ahlam (House of Dreams in English), only has twelve rooms with a stunning garden, pool, and Kasbah. We had our own villa with no TV, no phones, and, yes, wifi. It was the perfect getaway.

After settling into our villa, we went to have dinner. We didn’t realize that one of Dar Ahlam’s specialties is their food, all prepared by a French chef, and served in a different location every day. Our first meal was served in a large room with around 70 candles lit on tables and candelabras. We were wowed. The food was equally exceptional, and the hotel didn’t disappoint us with gorgeous breakfasts in the garden and romantic dinners in private rooms for our entire stay.

We could have stayed the entire time at Dar Ahlam, but of course we didn’t. Our first excursion was to an oasis (or palmeraie) in the desert. Our driver took us to the top of a plateau in the desert and we hiked our way down to the oasis. It was a beautiful hike.

Our tour guide was a man named Mohamed (everyone is named Mohamed in Morocco because it’s a tradition to name the firstborn son after the prophet). He was a deep thinker, quoting us Voltaire and others along our hike. Dave got into a deep discussion regarding theology with him, and after several days and over tea, I think he had convinced Mohamed to go buy himself a Bible.

Our second excursion with Mohamed was to the Valley of the Roses. The roses wouldn’t bloom for another month, but the drive was still incredible. The neatest part of our trip to the Valley of the Roses was our opportunity to see the nomadic Berbers and their caves. The nomadic Berbers live in caves in the winter, and head to higher ground for the summer. I cannot imagine living in a cave any more than I’m sure the Berbers can imagine New York City. The life seems so simple but difficult. The nomads were incredibly welcoming, offering us mint tea (which we couldn’t accept because of the typhoid risk in Morocco), cushions to sit on, and a free tour of their caves (not much to see and not enough room to even stand up straight) and livestock. They had some baby goats that had been born that very day they showed us. They were so adorable!

After driving through the Valley of the Roses, we went to the Dades Gorges, the most famous gorges in Morocco. They towered high above us; it must have taken the river ages to cut through rock that deep.

Our last excursion was to the Sahara Desert. I don’t know how to put this incredible journey into words. I almost didn’t write about because I didn’t know how to describe it. I can give you the facts of the trip, but I don’t think it can begin to capture our experience.

Getting to the Sahara Desert from Skoura takes about five hours. We stopped once along the way for a picnic lunch in a palmeraie. We had an audience of young sub-Saharan Berber boys watching us eat with fascination. They were excited when we took our bread and offered to share with them, and they tried to talk to us, but unfortunately I only know a few Arabic words and the French I took in college is nearly gone. Fortunately, a smile and food cross all cultures.

The long drive definitely heightened our anticipation of what awaited us in the desert. We weren’t the least disappointed when we came upon a private campground set in the sand dunes of the Sahara. The Sahara is nearly the size of the United States, something I couldn’t fathom as I looked over the endless sand. We were just touch the tip of the iceberg, but it seemed so huge from what even I could see.

The Sahara proved to be a giant adult’s playground, and Dave and I spent our time until dinner jumping off the sand dunes and playing with insects. No, I’m not kidding. The sand was so soft and fine, and you literally melted into it. You could get knee deep without even trying. Scarab beetles populate the Sahara, and they are the coolest insects. They spend their days climbing up the dunes. If we pushed our foot out and created an avalanche of sand, the beetles would somersault down, stand back up, and start climbing again. We could bury them in a pile of sand, and they would just dig their way back out.

We watched the sunset and then stared at the brightest stars I have ever seen in my life. I remember seeing bright stars in the Boundary Waters growing up, but it doesn’t compare to this. Nothing and no one lives in the Sahara. I have never seen so much blackness, nor heard so much silence. It was awe-inspiring.

We ate dinner by a campfire, drank some mint tea (Berber whiskey, it’s nicknamed in Morocco), and went to bed to get some sleep before the sunrise.

When we got to the Sahara, I was too warm in my t-shirt and jeans. When we went to bed, I was a little chilly, and when I woke up I was freezing, even in my fleece. We went barefoot onto the dunes that were so warm the day before, and I could barely walk they were so cold. I felt like I was walking on ice. It reminded me of tiptoeing outside to get the dumb dog (some of you know which one I’m talking about) to come back in because he won’t listen to me. I couldn’t believe how cold the sand had gotten overnight. Of course, the sunrise warmed the sand and by the time we left the desert a few hours later, I was too warm in my t-shirt again.

Our time in Skoura was incredible, and Morocco was an amazing experience. I was nervous going there because I had heard there was a lot of crime, but the one thing that stuck out to me about Morocco was the incredible hospitality. Everywhere we went, we were met with a smile and a “bonjour.” We were often offered mint tea, and the children all waved at us when passing us. Men came up to shake our hands. Women, still quite oppressed in the society, are not to talk to strangers, so we didn’t have any encounters with them. Maybe there’s something more pure about the smaller towns that the experience we would have had in, say, Casablanca, but I could safely recommend Morocco to anyone.