Hope Won

President Barack Obama.
Wow. We did it! We voted for hope rather than fear; America made a choice that reflected the
beliefs that so many of us have held dear for decades.
On Election Day, as I was watching the returns come in, I kept thinking about my visit this summer to the Bethel Woods Museum. If you haven’t been there yet, I suggest you make it a point to go. For there you can take a walk through the fifties and sixties, and remember the civil rights struggles of those days, the protest marches against war and for equality, and especially the spirit that began to grow in those decades saying that we are all God’s children, black and white, gay and straight, young and old.
And America belongs to all of us.
For quite a while now, we have been living in a land of fear, where our leaders tried to manipulate us and stoke our hatred of “the other.” “The other” is that person who doesn’t look like us, doesn’t speak our language, may have a different religion or skin color. We have watched as we went into a war that proved needless, since the weapons that were supposed to be there never existed. We have watched as our country used torture on prisoners. We have watched as our workers lost their jobs and our families lost their houses. We have watched as the hypocrisy of “No Child Left Behind” became yet another unfunded mandate and enriched the test makers as it demoralized teachers and students alike.
Where were the protests of the sixties? Granted, there were some big marches against the war, but it felt like our country had lost its soul, or had grown too tired to stand up to the injustices of the age.
And then, somehow, during this endless election cycle, a movement began to grow as Barack Obama’s unlikely candidacy became reality. And all those folks who were weary of the Bush doctrines went online and found that Obama’s campaign needed them. They got on busses and planes and traveled to wherever they were needed to knock on doors or make phone calls and spread the word. And once again, they dared to hope that the United States might be able to live up to its greatest promise: that a person here is judged by the content of his character, not the color of his skin, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently put it.
Then we went to vote, afraid to hope that it actually might happen.
My daughter voted in Manhattan, standing in a line three blocks long. She watched an elderly black woman making her way down the sidewalk in her walker, her head bent down, intent on finding her way. When she looked up and saw the lines of people out to vote, a huge smile spread across her face.
This is the United States of America that I love; a place of fairness and equality and even playing fields. A meritocracy that remembers its soul; a place where hope lives and dreams come true. Yesterday, Oprah was wearing a shirt that declared: “Hope Won.”
Yes, indeed.

Voting for Hope

Is the election over yet? I was reading through a column I wrote back in February, when I was already tired of the months and months of political wrangling between candidates.

Yes, if it is a word, I am tireder than I was eight months ago.

I know for whom I am going to vote, and I’ll give you a clue: my candidates never supported a bridge to nowhere. My candidates cannot see Russia from their front porches, and they are not particular friends with Joe (aka Sam) the (non) plumber.

My candidates are not (contrary to what you may have heard), Arabs, Muslims, friends with terrorists, or Marxists.

Have you guessed who is going to get my vote?

Yep, it’s Obama and Biden.

All I want is a fresh start, with someone with new ideas, a keen intellect, and the ability to make sound decisions for my country, which has gone further and further off the rails for the last eight years.

I want a leader who will restore our standing in the world. I want someone who will help us discover our best selves again; to reclaim the hope and promise of our wonderful country. And, for me, Obama is the man with the plan.

But the negative campaigning is really discouraging.

Like Wall Street’s wild ride, this politicking seems to have no bottom. Just when you think it can’t get any nastier, it does. I would venture a guess that many Americans are tired of all the venom and hatefulness that has become evident in the final days of this political battle.

Historically, elections always get negative. I have read enough biographies of American Presidents to know that much. We may think that we have reached new lows, but it is pretty standard fare to accuse one’s opponent of everything from treason to dishonesty to failing to pick up his socks.

The reason that we feel so worn out is probably because the modern primary season goes on forever and these candidates have been at it, in one form or another, for two years now.

So let’s take a deep breath and do what I suggested back in February. Let’s dispassionately look at the issues that matter to us, whether it is health care, education, or energy, and compare the candidates’ positions. This information is all out there, hiding amidst all the ad hominem attacks and distractions.

Do the research. Make your choice. Don’t engage in the hateration.

And then vote. And hope to goodness that by next Tuesday night, we know who our new President is. Spare us, dear Lord, from the curse of the hanging chad!

Papal Visit, Sort Of

Cute Swiss Guard at the Vatican in full pajamas

Laocoon and his Sons
in the Vatican collection

Modern Art in the Vatican Gardens

Our eleven day Italian trip was coming to an end. Our tour mates had become buddies, and , in some cases, friends. We had bonded through our shared experiences of climbing treacherous mountain trails, learning how to taste olive oil, eating plates of amazing Italian cuisine, and drinking slightly more than our share of wonderful Italian wine. It was fitting, then, with all these experiences together, that our last full day in Italy was spent making a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts.
Our penultimate day in Roma was spent touring the Vatican, the home of Pope Benedict as well as one of the largest collections of art in the world. That was part of the payoff of being Pope back in the day—all the best artists wanted to have their work in your house.
We took one of Rome’s two subway lines to get to Vatican City. Yeah, get this. The big city of Rome has two, count ‘em, two subway lines. One goes north-south, the other east-west. The problem with digging more lines is that every time you dig a hole in Rome, you find some kind of archeological artifact! That stops the digging in a quick hurry, while the government sends in the archeologists with their teaspoons and toothbrushes to unearth more historic treasures, which is definitely going to put a crimp in the subway digging schedule.
Our guide Karin told us that you see some pretty weird stuff in some Roman homes. A family might decide to renovate their basement and do some digging, which unearths some Roman detritus from an earlier century. If you tell the government, your home is overrun by you-know-who, those teaspoon and toothbrush people. So you keep your mouth shut, renovate your basement and put that ancient bust of Plutarch on a pedestal in your living room. Finders, keepers, and all that.

Clean, TV equipped Roman subway

So we took the beautiful, clean, television-equipped Roman subway to Vatican City, where we got in the long line (even for tour groups) for the Vatican.
Karin took us into the Vatican Gardens, where they have cleverly set up a series of large posters with the highlights of the Sistine Chapel paintings by Michelangelo. There she could explain the work to us, since speaking in the Sistine Chapel is forbidden ( a rule that is ignored by most of the tourists there, which necessitates the loud “Silencio” at regular intervals).

Karin shows us the Sistine treasures

Then she wound us through the maze of rooms that make up the papal palace, stopping at certain spots to show us particular works, than plowing ahead to reach the Sistine Chapel.
It was at once bigger and more intimate than I expected. And involves a lot of neck craning. But it is breathtaking and moving and it is hard to believe that this was painted by someone who considered himself more of a sculptor than a painter, for it is masterful. That Michelangelo had serious skills.
Our last evening together was spent at a restaurant near the Spanish Steps. We each had a chance to tell what we loved about the trip and the folks we had met. There were a lot of laughs and even some tears.
Ciao, ciao, Italia!

Roman Miracle

The last city we visited in our eleven day Italian odyssey was the Eternal City, Rome. Visiting Rome is like visiting New York City. There is absolutely no way you could possibly see everything worth seeing, even if you had two months to spend there, much less only two days. We knew that going in, and we content to make the most of the two main tours planned, one of ancient Rome and the other of Vatican City.

Our first day in Rome was spent looking at ancient Roman ruins, most notably the Colosseum and the Forum. Our tour guide, the lovely Francesca, was absolutely spellbinding as she explained that this history of Rome belongs to all of us. With her masterful and poetic language, she helped us to see that the civilization that began in Rome echoes through all our histories and cultures. Our day’s walk ended at the Pantheon, the remarkable architectural triumph built in 124 BC as a temple for all the gods. It is well preserved, and has served as a Catholic church since the 600’s.

As a side note, it was shortly after our tour of the Pantheon that a minor miracle occurred. You see, this tour was not without its victims, and I was one of them. I left some of my belongings in almost every hotel we visited. It really wasn’t easy to get everything packed and unpacked every two days! The most grievous loss for me happened as we left Siena. We were on the bus and just leaving the city limits, when I had a blinding flash of realization that I had left the battery for my camera still plugged into the charger in the wall socket right next to my bed. These are the moments when you realize that the group cannot be inconvenienced for your forgetfulness. Sigh.

I took a deep breath and dealt with it, but the photos of the breathtaking agriturismo were all kindly sent to me by our delightful Canadian tour mate Dorothy. She also sent me pictures of the Colosseum and the Forum.

So anyway, back to the miracle. We stopped for a libation after our hot, dusty trip through ancient Rome, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a shop selling sunglasses and camera batteries! Who am I to question the logic? I went inside and, sure enough, there must be lots of dopey tourists like me who lose their batteries or forget to bring along a charger, because they had fully charged batteries on sale! Mirabile dictu, as Caesar himself might say.

From the Pantheon, our tour guide Karin turned us loose for dinner and we took off to find the famous Trattoria der Pallaro run by the famous Italian mama Paola Fazi. There is no menu here—you just sit down and dinner is served. Eight of us gathered around the table for the 22-euro meal which included a table filled with appetizers, including Genoa salami, fresh mozzarella, olives, caprese salad, bread, and more, followed by a rich penne carbonara, followed by pork roast, followed by peach tarts and fresh peaches. We washed all this down with pitcher after pitcher of red wine. It was quite a show, with Mama Paola bustling in and out of the kitchen, shouting orders to all her cooks and waiters non-stop.

We had one more day in Roma and we were off to see the Pope…

Down on the (Italian) Farm

Our fourth stop of our Italian tour was at the Agriturismo La Rocca Orvieto. Permit me to translate. An agriturismo is a farm which also takes in tourists. La Rocca was the name of both the agriturismo and the vineyard surrounding it. And Orvieto is the name of the town at the top of a steep hill nearby.
Put them all together and you have one of the most beautiful, relaxing places in all of Italy. This agriturismo sits near the very top of a hill and is reached by one of the most windy roads it has ever been my pleasure to ride on a bus. In fact, the last switchback is so tight that the road had to be widened for our bus to make the turn. Our driver Fausto was a genius when it came to navigating those interesting Italian country highways.
We arrived at the agriturismo after a very full day of sightseeing, and we were ready for some relaxation. Emiliano, Sabrina, and Serena have created a first class retreat for those seeking a respite in the gorgeous Umbrian countryside.
La Rocca Orvieto overlooks Umbria for miles in every direction. Both evenings that we stayed there we had dinner al fresco at their Ristorante La Rocca, where we could sip the delicious local white and red wines and watch the sun set over breathtaking views.
And did I mention the rooms? They were wonderful! Brand new, up to date, each with its own outdoor patio, huge windows to capture the incredible views, marble floors (what else?) and lovely bathrooms.
We never wanted to leave this oasis of serenity. And I mean never.
But somehow our guide Karin talked us into a day trip to Orvieto. Orvieto is another one of those Italian movie-set villages with the medieval church, quaint shops and cobblestone streets. It also had a street fair/flea market going on. The highlight of this for me was the porchetta (aka porketta) booth. Behind the glass in this wheeled booth is proudly displayed an entire roast pig. From said pig are carved slices of a most delicious pork roast, which is then put between a crusty Italian roll for a walk-away sandwich that you will never forget. The porchetta wagon is a fairly common sight in Italy, and with good reason. Give me a porchetta sandwich and a glass of vino, and I’d pretty much be set for the day.
Orvieto is famous for its striped Duomo (church), as well as its Etruscan ancestors, whose tombs have been studied extensively and are on display in a small museum. The Etruscans made, among other things, very lovely gold jewelry. This mysterious race predated the Romans.
After our sojourn to Orvieto, memorable for its food and wine, as well as the trip up the funicular to reach this city built on a butte, we returned to our beloved agriturismo for a well deserved dip in their spectacular pool, another glass or two of vino, some local cheese and salami, followed by another spectacular meal overlooking the landscape of heaven. Ah, La Rocca, I miss you still!

Siena is ready for its close-up!

The thing about Italy, or at least all the small cities and towns that we visited, is that it feels like you’re on a movie set. Most of these towns were built in the Middle Ages, and you somehow get the feeling that no one has felt the need to change much since then.
Not that that’s all bad. It certainly makes for some picturesque sightseeing and great photos. But Italians like their buildings old and their towns quaint, and maybe it’s all for the tourists, but it sometimes seems impossible that anyone actually lives in these places.
Having said that, we traveled by bus from the beautiful towns of the Cinque Terre to the celebrated town of Siena, which is home to the Palio. The Palio is a horse race which, in its “modern” form, has been going on in Siena since 1650. Twice a year, on July 2 and August 16, the city of Siena holds the Palio. Ten of Siena’s seventeen Contrade, or neighborhoods, are represented in each race. As you might imagine, there is a great deal of competition between these neighborhoods and emotions run high.
Each contrade has its own chapel wherein their horse is blessed before the race. Next door is the neighborhood’s Palio museum where they keep the medieval uniforms worn during the Palio and its accompanying parade, as well as any banners won by that Contrade. The Palio is actually the silk banner, which is the only prize of the race, which is run in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
There are great artistic competitions to design these banners, which are quite beautiful.
The horses of the Palio are revered; the jockeys are basically hired hands who can bet on the race, join forces against each other, and during the race are allowed to whip their own horse as well as their human competitors, though they cannot whip another man’s horse. Oh, and as a side note, a riderless horse can win the Palio. Thus you can see the esteem in which jockeys are held.
We had tried to watch the Palio on the TV in the restaurant in Monterosso al Mare, but since the Siennese line up the horses with ropes, this is a process that can take hours, and so we gave up and ate our dinner.
We discovered that the Caterpillar neighborhood had won (the other Contrade have symbols such as the Eagle, the Little Owl, the Dragon, etc.). What this means is that the inhabitants of that neighborhood have bragging rights till the next Palio and usually parade around Siena, beating drums and celebrating in the Piazza del Campo, which is the central square of the city, the perimeter of which is covered in dirt for the horses, while thousands of people stand in the center to watch the race.
When we arrived on August 18, they were still removing the dirt from the Campo, but the party was on. The Caterpillar kids were out in their Caterpillar neckerchiefs, which they tie around their necks with a pacifier to symbolize the “new life” their victory has brought.
Walking the cobbled, almost traffic free streets of Siena and hearing the colorful history of the Palio only reinforced my belief that Italy is a land frozen in time, tradition-laden and totally camera ready.

Just Another Night and Day and Night in Paradise

Our first evening in Italy’s Cinque Terre ended in a local restaurant run by the Passini family which had opened especially for our tour group. Mama Passini gave us a pesto making demonstration complete with mortar and pestle right before dinner and then we were served her pesto lasagna that melted in our mouths, followed by swordfish with capers, topped off by a scrumptious semifreddo, which is the Italian version of ice cream cake. It was wonderful.

Their son Marco Passini, is a photographer of the Cinque Terre who sold us his calendars after dinner.

We made our way around Monterosso al Mare after dinner, poking our heads into the little souvenir shops and wandering through the ridiculously picturesque streets. Thank goodness I was able to get some retail therapy and buy a turquoise necklace in a shop that was stuffed to the rafters with goodies and was run by a charming Italian woman who called us all “nice ladies.”

The biggest challenge of the trip was waiting for us the next morning. As I mentioned before, Cinque Terre means “Five Lands” in Italian, and specifically means the five villages--Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore,which are connected by steep and winding paths. Five of us had decided to trek these paths and started off around ten o’clock in the morning.

We had been warned that the path between Monterosso and Vernazza was the steepest, but I don’t think I fully appreciated its difficulty (or my out-of-shapeness) until we had been climbing for about half an hour. But all our efforts were rewarded at every turn with the most spectacular views imaginable.

Approximately two and a half hours later, we five had reached Vernazza

and headed down through the little village for a well-earned lunch at a waterside café.

We made a not-so-secret pact to take the train from Vernazza to the fourth town,Manarola, and then walk on the last trail, the Via Amore, to Riomaggiore. At Riomaggiore, we caught the ferry back to Monterosso. We later found out that almost everyone on our tour who took the trails did the same thing we did, with the train-ferry combo to ensure survival. In our defense, it was awfully hot that day. And we did do the hardest trail.

That evening was the Feast of the Assumption and all the children in the village of Monterosso went to church and then went to the water’s edge and placed their “prayers” in the form of a candle on a little boat, out into the Ligurian Sea. After some time, their “prayers” floated way out into the water and the view of all those sparkling candles in the dark waters under a full moon was one of the most beautiful things you could ever imagine.

It seems somehow fitting that those prayer candles were our final memories of the Cinque Terre, a place so beautiful that it seems like Heaven on Earth. We lingered along the seaside path, watching those little lights dancing on the waves and knowing that no camera could ever truly capture the beauty of that sight. If there had been a way to cancel the rest of our tour and just stay for the next week in the Cinque Terre, I think many of us would have done it. It was gorgeous.

Hitting the Wall

There’s a lot to see in Italy, and if you are on a Rick Steves’ eleven day Heart of Italy tour, as my husband John and I were, you can bet that you are going to see most of it.

So, although we were fairly well knackered from our day and a half of touring Florence, we had the sneaking suspicion that things were going to get even more intense.

We dragged ourselves out of bed (still not un-jet-lagged enough to get a solid night’s sleep), packed up, raced down to breakfast and did the Rick Steves’ carry-and-drag of our suitcases out of the charming Hotel Accademia and down the narrow streets to a place wide enough for our bus. It was here that we met Fausto, our trusty, always cheerful bus driver, luggage handler, and beverage provider.

Thus began Day Three.

We were on the bus!

Our first stop was Lucca, a town surrounded by walls so thick that there is a wide bike/ pedestrian path around the top!

Our tour guide Karin assured us that even if we were wearing a skirt (that would be me), we should all take the opportunity to rent bicycles and ride them around the top of the walls, the better to experience Lucca.

Well, we did it. John and I did rent bikes and we did make it all the way around the wall, stopping for a brief tour through a flea market (those seem to be sadly the same wherever you are) and finishing with a delightful lunch at a sidewalk café (Insalata mista-mixed salad for me and delectable lasagna for John).

Sadly, between the biking and flea market and eating, we really didn’t get much of a chance to see the old Roman ruins of Lucca, but you can see where my priorities are. Exercise, of course, first, and food and shopping later!

After lunch, we even found another gelateria and treated ourselves to a double dip cone of Italy’s genius version of ice cream.

From there it was a long bus to the place that is at the top of my list for the title of Heaven on Earth—the Cinque Terre (Five Lands). These are five picturesque, cliff-hugging towns along the Ligurian Sea that, for centuries, were only connected by footpaths. Now there is a train (thank goodness), as well as a ferry in good weather.

We rode the bus as far as we could and then boarded a train to take us to Monterosso al Mare where we would be spending the next two nights.

As we rolled our suitcases out of the train station, we were knocked out by the view. The bluest blue sea sparkled in front of us as we made our way up the street past the flower-covered buildings to our little hotel, the Punta Mesco. We all made plans to meet at the beach, which was actually a narrow rock beach (or shingle), and soon we were merrily floating in the sea.

We enjoyed our moment’s respite and then had to scurry back to our hotel to change.

We had a date for supper and it turned out to be very memorable!