Dateline: Rome, Italy
Sorry there was no travelogue last night but when the train is four hours late and you don’t get to the hotel until after midnight, you don’t exactly feel like doing much of anything other than lying there and decompressing. Writing multiple paragraphs of coherent prose was just not going to happen. I’m pretty good at doing a brain dump under most circumstances but even I have certain limits. And then there’s the age thing. Paw paw doesn’t like being kept up past his bed time unless it’s by his choice.
Yesterday started well enough. I awoke on a last Paris morning. The heat had not yet descended. I had a few hours before I needed to make my way to the Gare de Lyon so I took a little walk down the Blvd Italiens to the Opera Garnier and back. (It was still covered by a large advertisement for Tiffany & Co as they are busy sandblasting the facade or some such). I shoved everything into my suitcase, now about 3/4 laundry, and rolled it out to the sidewalk. There were a dearth of cabs and, as the Metro entrance was right there, I figured I’d just haul myself down to the station the cheap way. My large roller bag is a bit unwieldy and there are lots of stairs in the Paris Metro so I was cursing that decision by the time I arrive at the station. I had had a large breakfast so I didn’t feel like lunch but downed two bottles of water as the temperature was climbing and the humidity was rising and I was sweating like Birmingham in mid-July.
I was booked on the TGV train direct to Milan. It’s about a seven hour ride under normal circumstances as the train usually goes 70-90 miles an hour. For reasons known only to European Rail companies, we were delayed an hour leaving the station. This led to a series of cascading delays as tracks were occupied that ended up adding roughly four hours to the journey. The train ride itself was pleasant enough. I splurged for first class so the seat was comfortable. The scenery, once we left the more decrepit banlieus of Paris, was lovely. French countryside with fields and woods until we hit Dijon, then we turned south and passed through the outskirts of Lyon before heading East and up through the higher and higher peaks of the Alps until we dove under them and across the border to Italy through the Frejus tunnel. Then down through more mountain valleys into the Piedmont and the outskirts of Turin where we got stuck in a rail siding yard for two hours. What that was all about I could not say. The PA announcements were in Italian (and my vocabulary is limited to opera subjects and there’s not a lot of Verdi or Puccini about transportation difficulties) or in French with a thick Italian accent and all I could tell about that was that it was some sort of Romance language.
We eventually arrived in Milan. The locals were as grumpy as I was. It was now nearly midnight and fifty people converged on a taxi stand with no taxis. I got smart and ordered an Uber and was on my way in about fifteen minutes while most people remained in line for the few Milan taxis working the late shift. I was deposited at the Hotel Puccini, got my key and fell into bed.
Some reasonable sleep had me feeling better this morning so I had hotel breakfast (better breakfast bar than in Paris), arranged for a late check out and headed out to do a little exploring of Milan. It was already in the high 70s at 8:30 AM and promising to be another scorcher so I figured it best to wander before it got too unbearably hot. My hotel was on the Corso Buenos Aires, which turned out to be a major upscale shopping street so I peeked into windows at various high fashions while I made my way down to the historic center of town (about a mile or so). The historic center, like many European cities, is pedestrian only and dominated by the cathedral, the Duomo, which with its facade of marble and multiple delicate gothic spires, looks like a rather oversized wedding cake. I have seen lots of pictures over the years but it’s always nice to see such a building in person and in context. It wasn’t overly crowded so I paid my admission to go in (not the most interesting cathedral I’ve ever been in. It’s actually somewhat dull compared to Cologne or Chartres or Seville or York Minster) but refrained from paying the extra fees to take the elevator to the roof.
After touring one house of worship, I headed over a couple of blocks to the house of worship in which I had a great deal more interest, La Scala. It was open for touring so I spent an hour in their museum which immortalizes the greats of several centuries of Italian Opera. Their special exhibit was on Wagner’s Ring and how the house has approached it over the years, complete with production photographs, film clips, costumes, set renderings etc. Interesting how interpretations have changed and what is emphasized now versus what was emphasized then. The house itself was busy with a rehearsal (The opening of Act III of Carmen) but we were allowed to watch a little from a box. They have a few more resources than Opera Birmingham. It looks like this is going to be a modern dress Carmen set someplace in the interminable wars of the Middle East. I don’t know who was singing Carmen but she was marking.
The only other thing in Milan I had major interest in was Leonardo’s Last Summer but tickets to that are needed months in advance so it was pretty much out of the question. So, I had gelato instead, went back to the hotel to get my bags, and was smart enough to take a taxi to Milan Stazione Centrale. Unlike yesterday, the train from Milan to Rome left precisely on time and was not delayed. We rolled through the Po Valley, stopped at Bologna, then ascended into the Tuscan hills with lots of lovely views of villas and small walled towns looking out over vineyards and fields. We rolled through Florence and then on to Rome. As I watched the countryside flash by, I had visions of myself selling up and purchasing a Tuscan Villa for retirement. But knowing my luck, one of my friends would have a lot worse things to say than ‘Your toilet is on fire’ in a Sandra Oh deadpan.
The train pulled into Rome about 7 PM. A very long line at the taxi stand and, of course, the man behind me pulled out a rather smelly cigar. When I got to the head, forty-five minutes later, the luck of the draw gave me a surly cabby with aggressive driving habits and what I have to assume were Italian expletives as he hurled them at pedestrians, traffic lights and other cabbies. I did arrive at my hotel in one piece. It’s right off the north wall of the Vatican City, about two blocks from the entrance to the Vatican museums. I was hungry so I found a local taverna, ordered two kinds of pasta, a limoncello spritz, and retired early for the night. I can sightsee tomorrow when Thomas, my travel companion for the next couple of days, gets here
Life, The Universe, and Everything 