Category: Travel

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Mare Nostrum II: Roma–In the Shadow of Centuries

Capitoline wolf statue
Capitoline Wolf, Museo Capitolini in Rome. Photo by kajmeister.

There are very few places left which can live up to their own hype. Rome does. Use whatever words you like–ostentatious, city of grandeur, over the top–Rome wears them like a toga. You want 2000-year-old ruins? Here’s a Temple of the Vestal Virgins. Over there’s a Colosseum, where one three-day festival weekend, they slaughtered 9000 people in it. You like statues? Here’s a six-foot head of Constantine that used to tower in a piazza or… how about a Michelangelo so close to you that you can breathe on it. Want coffee? Best cappucino in the world at this hole in the wall, mind the scooters aiming at you as you cross the alley. Museums? More than in Washington D.C. Pastries? Sfogliatelle. Religious backdrops? Oh, here’s a church (imagine me waving vaguely at St. Peter’s, the way Edith Head used to wave at all her Oscars).

We’ve seen painted ceilings, beautiful sculptures, and well-turned out meals in many places. Rome just seems to have more. Of everything. Continue reading “Mare Nostrum II: Roma–In the Shadow of Centuries”

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Mare Nostrum I: Venice-La Serenissima

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o’er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,

What should thy sons do?–anything but weep
And yet they only murmur in their sleep.

—Ode to Venice, Lord Byron

It’s easy to be in awe of Venice; it’s harder to like it.

I am not referring either to Venice, California, in the state where I live, or Venice, Florida where my dad used to live and where I spent the summer of ’78 driving up and down the Tamiami Trail. I’m talking about THE Venice, which is the first stop on our three week sojourn around the Mediterranean. The first thing you observe is the sound of water lapping, nonstop, against the docks, the sound of engines revving up and cutting down as the barges and taxis slip around through the canals. History sings as you ride the boats between the Palazzo Thises and the Ca d’Thats, but, even in sunlight, the buildings which shine in the distance seem faded and dingy close up.

Venice St. Mark's Square
St. Mark’s Square, Venice, photo by kajmeister

Beautiful Decay

One well-traveled friend warned me that she found Venice dirty and odorous, like New Orleans without signs in English. Another said she loved to walk around and just “gawk.” For me, the city inspired thoughts of both. Arriving to the train station via water taxi, the food seems airport-priced, the toilets require coins, and people are jammed into the few available seats and benches. (Don’t sit on the bridges!) Lines for the vaporetto (water bus) tickets are long, signs are confusing, and photo stops at the Rialto bridge and elsewhere are wall-to-wall shoulders and strollers. A vaporetto ride down the Grand Canal listening to a pre-downloaded Rick Steves’ tour seemed like a great “get acclimated” idea, except that the popular #1 line was also crammed full of bodies–where do these tourists all come from? Same place as myself, I suppose.

Continue reading “Mare Nostrum I: Venice-La Serenissima”

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National Parks & America’s Pioneer Identity

I read biographies voraciously in the second grade; our school library had a whole series of them. Amelia Earhart, Betsy Ross, George Washington – I distinctly remember Thomas Jefferson hating to have his hair cut with a bowl on his head. The biography of Kit Carson said he was a pioneer and explorer who helped clear the west for the settlers. Isn’t that what we all learned? In 1993 (and two weeks ago), I was reading a National Park Service plaque about Kit Carson at Canyon de Chelly which explained that the site was the last stand for a group of Navajos before Carson put them on the Long Walk. The Long Walk? I didn’t remember reading about that part of his biography.

Fortress Rock, Canyon de Chelly, Site of Kit Carson’s campaign of genocide

Kit Carson, American Mass Murderer
Carson, according to modern bio excerpts, was a tireless explorer, traveled 20,000 miles on the back of a mule, spoke nine Native American languages, and married two native women. He fought off the Mexicans and Spanish in the acquisition of California for the United States. In the 1860s, the U.S. army put him in charge of clearing out the west, focusing on the Navajo, who refused to be relocated to a reservation. In 1864, he came into Canyon de Chelly, where hundreds of Navajos had lived for decades, just as the Anasazi had lived in the cliffs for centuries before. Carson attacked them as Spanish soldiers had done before him, and the Navajos climbed up into their hill fortresses for protection. Carson’s response was the euphemistic “scorched earth policy,” meaning he drove their livestock into blind canyons and slaughtered them. He burned all their crops, every last cornfield and melon patch. Then, he waited out the people until they came down, starving. He gathered them together – and other Navajos who had been captured – and drove these thousands of men, women, elders, and children 300 miles across Arizona into New Mexico to the Pecos River. That is the Long Walk. Continue reading “National Parks & America’s Pioneer Identity”