Summer Love

I’ve never been a summer lover.

Aside from a child’s appreciation of being school-free, I always associated summer with inner-thigh friction and unplanned sweating.

When I moved to the northeast I developed a deeper fondness for the early part of summer, as it was cooler and less humid than the summers of my childhood. Still, unlike so many of my friends, I wasn’t in love.

This year, though, I approached summer with a new attitude. The winter had been long and mean. Spring was stressful with work, unmet personal goals and world-wide economic Armageddon. I was determined to have not just a good summer but a great one, one that would press “pause” on all that grown-up life stuff until September.

An early summer trip to Italy was the right way to start this new relationship. Yes, I thought, as I walked the streets of Rome, summer could be my lover. By July I was giddy. I wore cute dresses and flirty heels every day cause I thought summer would like it. I strolled slowly, like my southern roots taught me, hips swaying. I hoped summer wouldn’t think I was crazy cause I smiled to myself a lot. I was somewhat successful at squelching my Louisiana-girl irritation with New York City’s lack of central a/c and mosquito control trucks (what’s so wrong with vehicles that spray bug-killing chemicals into the air?).  Me and summer had a three-month-long make-out session––whether we were in Italy or Cape Cod or Central Park.

The conservatory garden in Central Park

A prime strolling opportunity. (conservatory garden pergola)

See how she grinning? That was me and summer. (detail of conservatory garden fountain, Three Dancing Maidens)

Summer was open to all sorts of public displays of affection.

The Harlem Meer, Central Park

Vegetables in the Union Square Greenmarket

Herbs in the Greenmarket. I bought some home and planted them in pots on my windowsill. Seemed like a summery thing to do. Uh, may they rest in peace.

In spite of the good times, though, summer and I did, eventually, have to part. I admit, I got clingy. Kind of like the girl in this life-like sculpture I saw at a gallery in Chelsea.

I love summer like she loves that beach ball.

Up close, it was eerily fleshy. The water droplets are silicone.

Before I knew it, the Labor Day weekend was rushing towards us.  For the sweet sorrow of my parting from summer, I set out for my friends’ beach rental at Barnegat Light, on Long Beach Island, NJ. This section of the Jersey Shore (no, nowhere near where Snookie and The Situation emerged from the primordial ooze of reality TV) is a narrow strip of barrier island barely three football fields wide with an 18-mile strip of beaches facing the Atlantic.

Getting there without a car is…interesting. There is no train service. Because I didn’t feel like renting a car and fighting the Garden State Parkway on a holiday weekend, I had to venture into the  fifth circle of hell that is the Port Authority Bus Terminal. But I shan’t dwell.

After two buses and a cab ride I arrived to my friends, Jennifer and Curtis, waving to me from the deck. I poured myself into a sundress while Jennifer poured me a coffee cup of single malt scotch (these friends and I have a colorful scotch history). I am immediately escorted to the beach at the end of the block…

Scotch & Sunset

The beach at Barnegat Light, sunset

…just in time for sunset.

The beach actually faces east so the sunset glowed behind us, beyond the line of beach houses. In front of us, the ocean and the sky above turned various shades of lilac and gold…

Barnegat Light Beach

…until a sliver of moon was bright against the sky.

Moonrise

Jennifer’s husband, Curtis, pointed out how far up the beach Irene had pushed the sea. It’d been less than a week since the hurricane. A little over a week since our East Coast earthquake. It all seemed so distant. Disaster? What disaster? Summer and I were on the beach for the Last Weekend.

The path to the beach.

Long Beach Island had been lucky. Though it was a narrow strip of island it suffered little damage. The most notable effect was the thick carpet of sea shells that were washing up.

Even long-time beach goers had never seen so many shells.

Every morning I strolled the beach and marveled at the sheer number of and variety of them, strewn about like the detritus of a wild, seaside party. There were Quahog clams bigger than my hand, black and grey scallops, tiny black mussels with brilliant cobalt blue markings.

A mix of giant Quahogs and other species.

Almost all of them were empty; the sea birds feasted all day long. Occasionally I found a live one and threw it as far into the ocean as I could, though I’m sure they were in a gull’s gut before the day was out.

The gulls were so happy.

The shellfish, not so happy.

From time to time I came upon small translucent jellyfish (of the non-stinging variety).

thank you for not stinging

I could not resist touching them, and shamelessly giggling. They quivered like those Jell-O wiggles from this old Bill Cosby commercial: http://youtu.be/zr-ldaNUoMM.

I was slightly anxious about summer’s departure and the return to the grind, but I pushed those thoughts away with long walks on the beach.

Meditation, courtesy of sun and sea.

Saturday morning I walk and walk on sand that, for long stretches, is, thankfully, hard packed. I appreciate sugar sand as much as the next person but how is one supposed to walk on that stuff? I marvel at you people who possess whatever chromosome that allows you to skim across the sand like camels.

Sun, Sea, Shells

In any case, the sea shimmered, the sand squished between my toes…summer and I laughed at September. Even though the temperature dropped dramatically at sundown.

On Sunday Curtis and I walk to the bay side of the island to see the sunset. Summer puts on a show for me. Everyone can see it, but I know it loves me best.

And then it is the last day. Jennifer and I walk the beach all the way to the tip of the island, to the lighthouse that gives Barnegat Light its name.

In a few hours it would be gray and cold but that morning it was still summer's house.

The "light" at Barnegat Light

The jetty is so much taller than it looks. My wimpy-ness was totally justified.

She climbs to the top of a jetty, but I wimp out and mutter about the dangers of going barefoot on slippery rocks with a bad achilles and a torn yadda, yadda, yadda. Jennifer perches on the sea side of the jetty and meditates.

I find a kiddie rock on the beach side and splash my feet in a sunlit tide pool; I happily contemplate the pink of my toenail polish for I don’t know how long…well, long enough to be okay with summer’s departure.

Hardcore meditation: contemplating pink toenail polish.

On the walk back I feel the satisfaction of a task completed and, as if on cue, clouds roll in, the temperature drops and it’s done.

Bye...bye

Till next year, summer.

Summer Is A Verb

My life is blessed in many ways: with good health, with a steady job (so far) in troubled economic times, with loved ones and, here in the northeast especially, with friends who summer. Summer, I discovered when I moved to New York City, is a verb, not just a season.

Here, many people summer every weekend or for weeks or, for the very fortunate, the entire three-month period in one of the many resort havens within a few hours or half-day travel of the northeast corridor. Even if one can’t afford to summer in this manner one can still get a taste because some companies in New York City (mine included–yay!) have  a delightful tradition called “summer Fridays.” The office closes at noon or one on Fridays during the summer so that people can get an early start on their weekend summer-ing (getting out of New York City on a Friday afternoon can be an, um, aggressive activity).

I’ve had the good fortune to have friends who summer in the Hamptons, who summer in New Jersey and  who summer on a magical 87-square mile island off the southern end of Cape Cod called Martha’s Vineyard.

My friends Becky and Jacob have a long family tradition of spending time on the Vineyard for a few weeks every year in a cottage full of family and friends. Last year I joined them for the first time and immediately fell in love. Oak Bluffs, where they’ve rented the same house for a decade, is my dream vacation town. Large enough to provide desirable services and amenities, but small enough to walk from one end to the other. It oozes with New England clapboard and Victorian gingerbread architecture and hydrangea hedges.  It feels like one is never more than ten minutes from the sea.

I was thrilled when my invitation this year coincided with my birthday. But first I had to get there. Depending on how much one wants to spend on transportation, getting to the Vineyard from NYC can involve planes, trains, automobiles and ferries––one or a combination of all four. Luckily, there’s now a ferry company (http://www.seastreak.com/marthas.aspx) that goes direct from Manhattan to Martha’s Vineyard.

The boat didn’t leave until almost 5pm so I had all day to kill. Since it was my birthday I decided to kill it at a spa. Then I had lunch with friends. Then I looked at the time and saw that I’d been waaay ambitious. I was downtown. My luggage was uptown. My boat was at a pier in midtown. I’ll spare you the details except to say that making it to the boat on time involved paying my cab driver extra to stop illegally in the middle of the street so I could grab my luggage and dash through traffic.

The panic of departure was soon forgotten, though, as I stood on deck and watched the city rush by…

..and then recede in the distance….

…until it was little more than a shadow on the water.

Five hours later I had traded the island of Manhattan for an island that I can only think of in terms of summer (though there are, of course, people who live there year round). It was 10pm and the sea was hidden in the dark, but I could hear the slap, slap, slap of waves against the dock. The clean tang of salt mixed with the sharp, green scent of fresh cut pine (or maybe cedar?) of the ferry landing’s wooden roof. It was about 20 degrees cooler than the city. I smiled.

Becky and Jacob’s house was full as always––children and friends and friends’ children greeted me with hugs and kisses, everybody wearing that happy summer-ing glow. A champagne cork popped within moments of my arrival. A hotly contested piece of sumptuous seafood pie had been saved for me. Becky’s friend Joan had mixed up a concoction she called Brazilian lemonade. I took one sip and my head got warm. Later Joan brings forth an item which could only have come from Satan’s pastry chef: red velvet cake ice cream. God help us.

The next morning we started the day the right and proper way: with a slow stroll into town.

No, there were no sightings of POTUS, only quiet streets…

…porches ready for sitting…

…an old car used as a sign for an antiques shop…

The sign in the window says "antiques"

…lush gardens and colorful Victorian houses…

…the gazebo at Ocean Park…

The gazebo at Ocean Park

…and then our destination, Mocha Motts, a popular coffee shop. I don’t think the day could start without this walk and this seriously strong coffee…especially given the wine and cocktail flow.

Good morning!

After lounging near the gazebo to sip our coffee and gossip we head back to the house and start the day, there is a summer theatre camp performance featuring Becky and Joan’s sons, lunch and then the evening excursion to a beach called Lambert’s Cove, where other friends and friends of friends will be met. There is a vague notion of bonfire. No one is really sure. It doesn’t matter; the point is to watch the sunset.

But provisions must be made. There is a stop at the wine store, natch, and then a drive to church. Not for worship, though, for lobster. Grace Church in the nearby town of Vineyard Haven raises money by selling lobster rolls every Friday afternoon from 4:30 – 7:30. Arrive after 6:00 to your peril. We arrive at 4:40.

Hightailing it to Grace Church to beat the lines.

There is also pie.

We buy tubs (yes, tubs) of lobster salad and rolls and chips and pile into cars for a drive to a beach my hosts have never visited but have been told is beautiful. During the day it requires a permit but after 5:00 it’s open. We hike a sandy and, eventually, steep trail through the woods. I have no pictures of this cause I was hiking on a sandy and steep trail through some woods with bags and had to be focused to keep from falling on my ass. But that bit was forgotten when we emerged onto an exquisite crescent of sugar sand and crystalline water.

The beach at Lambert Cove.

We were a small group. The beach was nearly empty. We dropped our stuff and Jacob immediately went to work on prepping the afore-mentioned lobster rolls.

Jacob works the lobster roll station.

More people began to slowly trickle in, including a lovely British couple that I met last year, Lincoln and his wife Jane, whom he calls “Queen” to the point where for a long time Becky thought it was actually her name. Becky and Jacob became friends with them during their time on the island several years ago. It is hard to describe what it’s like to be in Lincoln’s presence––kind of like sky diving into a vat of champagne while listening to Jimi Hendrix––and this photo certainly doesn’t capture him. In any case, it’s impossible not to love these two.

Lincoln & "Queen"

The sort of organizer of sunset arrived, an exuberant seagull (the name for those who live year round on the island) named Craig, the mayor of Lambert Cove Beach. He explained that that there would be bonfire building. That someone was going to belly dance, that he was thrilled to see us and so forth.

Craig, Mayor of Lambert Cove Beach & Organizer of Bonfires

There was some concern about the clouds, that they would obscure the sunset, but the Mayor assured us that we shouldn’t worry about such things. And he was right.

The clouds began to clear, blue sky peeked through...

...just in time to turn golden...

...as the sun went down in a blaze of glory.

Meanwhile, our beach tribe was growing. There were children in, well, costume…

A fire pit had been dug and a blaze started…

Mayor Craig organizes the digging of the fire pit.

Wine flowed.

Wine flowed, natch.

There was widespread hugging and laughing…

Becky & Jacob

And by twilight our group size had tripled.

By twilight, our group had grown exponentially

The fire blazed, sparks lit up the night, marshmallows roasted (I hadn’t eaten a roasted marshmallow in decades!), lanterns were lit and floated skyward. Somebody brought out a guitar for heaven’s sake. There were enough various ethnicities to make an 80s era Benneton ad. I kept waiting for the hidden cameras to reveal themselves.  Mayor Craig said “if you can’t be happy here you can’t be happy anywhere.” And he was right.

Lantern

Marshmallows!

Is a bonfire on the beach the secret to happiness? I wouldn't argue the point.

Parks & Islands

The July Fourth weekend came as a bit of a surprise. I’d just gotten back from the Italy trip and, quite frankly, I didn’t have a grasp of the calendar much less weekend travel plans. People kept asking me if I was going somewhere for the Fourth and I kept asking “when is it?” with a bewildered look on my face. I was still trying to figure out why I wasn’t sitting on a piazza.

But holiday weekends wait for no one. The city, particularly Manhattan, emptied out. My friend Keturah, who was heading to India for the rest of the summer, came over that Saturday and I made a lunch for a few friends. Since it was the Fourth I did a classic American menu––chicken wings, potato salad and a tomato and cucumber salad. Since Keturah was headed to India, I marinated the chicken in a coconut curry.

I also made a tart––from scratch!––for the first time. I’d been inspired by the perfection of the season’s white nectarines. I spiced the tart with cardamom, honey and vanilla. Tasted like summer.

After lunch we headed down to Wall Street to the Staten Island ferry landing, where a group of us caught a ferry to Governor’s Island. This little squirt of land off the tip of Manhattan was founded as an army base in 1776 after the British had been sent back across the pond. The military was done with the island by the 1990s and in 2003 the land was turned over to New York state and to the National Park Service.

All of which means that we New Yorkers have another great backyard to hang in. There are bike rentals, snack carts, bucolic green spaces and, this summer, large-scale outdoor sculpture courtesy of Storm King Art Center (an extraordinary 500-acre sculpture park just north of NYC http://www.stormking.org/).

The buildings of this former military base are deserted and dilapidated. Several of the former residences are being used for art exhibits.

The chapel has been decommissioned and is now home to a bizarre installation that resembles an alien birthing chamber…

…where one can attach a giant condom to one’s head which triggers some kind of projection and….I don’t know. Does it matter?

As often happens when my friend Keturah and I venture out for wanderings in NYC, we were ill-equipped. Despite the fact that we knew we were coming to a park, we didn’t actually bother to bring a blanket or a bottle of water or any of the other things one would bring to a summer outing in a park. On an island. Not even a hat. The heat soon drove half of our group back to Manhattan.

Keturah won't be stopped by our general lack of preparation.

Keturah and I soldiered on, determined to complete the excursion in spite of our lack of preparation. We were used to this. We reminisced on Fourth of July 2002. We’d both just moved to New York. We decided it would be great to go to Coney Island. On the Fourth. With no preparation and no clue (8 million people live in NYC. About half go to Coney Island for the Fourth). This Governor’s Island gambit was child’s play compared to Coney Island ’02.

Besides, Coney Island didn’t have the naked torso and preternatural side burns of the trapeze school guy.

All the sweating was worth it when we got to the waterfront and the Manhattan views.

~

Later in the week I was leaving a meeting near another lovely NYC green space, Bryant Park. Throughout the summer, free events draw New Yorkers to this midtown gem. That day, hundreds of yoga devotees were saluting the sun, balancing their chakras and crouching like crows. I couldn’t help but stop and…take a picture of them being all flexible and whatnot.

The day’s heat had cooled. A breeze came up off the Hudson. The magic hour light was falling. From some unseen speakers Sinatra sang “New York, New York.” How could I possibly just walk away? I always have a novel in my bag. I sat at a table and submerged myself in book three of the epic that inspired the HBO series “Game of Thrones” (I won’t even start on what a relentless, brutal ride THAT is).

By the time the light was gone so were the day’s stresses. My inner Italy was thrilled and my wanderlust was satisfied for a little while longer.

Rome: All the Rest

I’ve been putting off the last of these blog entries on the Italy excursion. If I’m done writing about it, it’s really over and I must resign myself to life in the real world. But it’s been nearly two weeks and my Roman holiday really is done. I’m back at work, being annoyed even as I fiercely protect my inner Italy. I’ve resolved that I will not let years and years go by before the next Big Escape. Not only that, but I’ll feed my wanderlust with regular small scale “wanderings” here in my New York, which I’ve quickly fallen in love with again. And that, of course, is the true joy of travel: coming home to the familiar and the beloved and seeing it with fresh, appreciative eyes.

But, the last bits of Rome…

Even the Po-Po are sexy.

Rome’s greatest attraction is not an ancient ruin or a priceless work of art or fashion. Neither is it the food and wine (though they run a close second) or one of the breathtaking vistas. The best of the Eternal City is the people watching, especially the guy watching.

Note: there would be ever so much more photographic evidence of this if not for my unfortunate Event (the loss of the camera), but we’ll have to make do.

What struck me about the men of Rome, especially the businessmen, was the way they lived up to cinematic fantasy. There’s a song in the musical “Nine” (http://youtu.be/WsiBdK9wE3A) that praises the “essence of Italian style,” and rightly so. Everywhere I turned there were sleek, dark-haired men in beautifully tailored suits, conveniently posing on street corners and along piazzas, darting about on Vespas and motorbikes, smoking their cigarettes, looking cool and unruffled in 90-degree heat. For an entire glorious week I did not behold one ill-fitting suit, not one grown man walking around with his pants hanging off his ass. The latter alone was worth the price of the plane ticket.

Heat? What heat?

My friend asked Giovanni, husband to the lovely woman who owned the property in Umbria, himself a cool-ly stylish Roman politico, how Roman men managed to stay so suave while wearing a suit in the near-tropical summer heat. His response: “It is a sport.” A spectator sport, I would add. And one that some of the local polizia also play. I boldly snapped pictures of a group near the Piazza Colonna and the parliament buildings, hoping they would come over to tell me it was not permitted to take pictures of the police and that I would have to be frisked. But all they did was pose.

Churches & Cheese

In addition to its large population of well-dressed men, the Eternal City has, as would be expected of the seat of Catholicism, an equally large population of churches. I’m not particularly religious but I was raised in a family that is dutifully Southern Baptist and, oddly enough, was educated from first through twelfth grades in Catholic schools (I’m from Louisiana, a staunchly Catholic state where most private schools are parochial). I grew up going to morning mass amid the soaring, gilded ceilings of St. Francis de Sales. The bitter and cloying smoke of the censor is as much a part of my memories as the sway of a gospel choir. Though I’m not attracted to Catholic doctrine, I’ll give ‘em this: they’ve got style.

Santa Maria in Campitelli

I am drawn into churches throughout Rome as much for the grandeur of the spaces as for the cool shade of the marbled interiors. I donate Euros and light votives, say prayers at banks of flickering candles for my late father and my mother’s health.

I am also drawn to all these great Public Displays of Paganism. Reliquaries abound, encasing pieces, parts or the entirety of the Catholic Church’s thousands of canonized saints (even the church doesn’t have an official count). On that day we got lost we stumbled upon Santa Maria in Campitelli, a church near the Capitoline Hill that is known for its icon of the Madonna that allegedly saved Rome from the plague in the 1600s. I knew nothing of this until I researched the church later.

My blurry shot of the altarpiece

On the steaming hot day I wandered in I was too preoccupied with the dazzling altarpiece and, well, what appears to be a well-preserved and well-adorned body encased in a glass case. It is San Giovanni Leonardi, the patron saint of pharmacy. Yes, pharmacy. I discover later it is not his real body, but a rendering of it, though to have the body wouldn’t be unusual.

A shrine to the patron saint of pharmacy

The next day I go into the church of S. Agostino to see its Caravaggio and also find a skull glued to the ledge of a column next to one of its chapels. A human skull. Just sitting out in the open…not encased in glass. The card that may have explained why human remains were part of the architecture was in Italian. The card may also have said “do not touch,” but how could I know? Yes, I touched it. How could I not? I also took a picture of it…that was lost during The Event.

One of the most magnificent churches in Rome is also one of the great wonders of antiquity. The Pantheon was built around 125 A.D. and survived fully intact in large part because of it was turned into a church in the seventh century. The guidebooks say its massive dome is a mathematical wonder as well––its diameter (140 feet) exactly matches the building’s height. Or something like that. All I know is that one day we were trying to find the Piazza Navona (and lunch) when we emerged from a series of little winding streets onto a piazza and there it was––boom, the Pantheon, massive and looking every inch the ancient wonder (there were so many more pictures taken, but you know what happened to them).

We passed among the giant columns and I tried to imagine which of Rome’s famous ancient citizens passed this way before me. Inside, I gazed up at the dome’s huge oculus and listened in on an English tour guide pointing out the holes in the floor designed to catch the rainwater that falls in through the opening.

The great oculus in the dome of the Pantheon.

An angel statue in the Pantheon, which was consecrated as a church in the 7th century.

Later we did find the Piazza Navona, where I had the world’s freshest piece of buffalo mozzarella in a Caprese salad that most definitely qualified as a religious experience. After, I strolled the Navona, one of Rome’s most impressive piazzas. It is 900 feet long and was an ancient sporting arena. Today crowds flock for gelato and pizza and street performers…

Street dancers on the Piazza Navona.

…and to gaze upon the Bernini masterpiece that graces its center––the Fountain of the Four Rivers.

The figure in the foreground, representing the Nile, has a shroud over his face because when the statue was built Europeans didn't know the source of the Nile.

Completed in 1651,the fountain features figures representing rivers from the four corners of the earth targeted by the Church for “conversion”––the Nile, the Ganges, the Danube and the Rio de la Plata. Knowing what was involved in the Catholic Church’s “conversion” efforts, I find it ironic that one of the figures seems to be cowering from the Church of S. Agnes in Agone, which faces the fountain. Perhaps he knows what’s coming for those the church seeks to convert. Or perhaps he knows the story of St. Agnes.

Legend has it that St. Agnes was a devout teenager from a Christian family who refused to marry a nobleman whose family kept the old Roman gods. For her trouble, she was stripped naked and dragged into a brothel––apparently virgins couldn’t be executed––where she was raped…or was not raped because of a miracle attributed to her. Later she was burned or beheaded or stabbed…depending on which account one reads. In any case, she was martyred and canonized and pieces of her are in various places inside the Italian baroque masterpiece that was named for her.

St. Agnes’ tiny little skull is on display in one of the chapels. Yes, more bones. Here’s a very bad photo of the reliquary (I was shooting from the hip, against the rules!). The circular area in the center of this blur holds the skull behind glass.

Ironically, “agone” does not translate to “agony” and does not relate to the trials of St. Agnes. The ancient name of the Piazza Navona was “piazza in agone,” a Greek term that translates to “in the site of the competitions,” a reference to the piazza’s use as an ancient stadium.

I mentioned the religious experience brought about by that mozzarella on Piazza Navona and I’ll just touch on food for a moment. Everyone who knows me knows I take food seriously.  I ate and drank well, of course. It’s Italy, for God’s sake. But Italian cuisine is really quite simple. It’s all about exceptionally fresh, high quality ingredients and I was frequently enraptured by a marinated zucchini or a fresh tomato and frequently forgot to pull out my camera until it was too late.

Fresh tomatoes at the morning market in the Campo de'Fiori

In any case, there were a few stand out moments, mostly involving cheese. I’m a bit of a food snob and this trip certainly ratcheted things up a few notches, particularly when it comes to cheese. I am now, officially, a buffalo mozzarella snob. And a ricotta snob. And a burrata snob. (During my two weeks in Italy I consumed enough dairy fat to nourish a small Scandinavian village and haven’t been anywhere near a scale since I’ve returned. I’m just glad my jeans still fit.)

There was a burrata incident at a spot called Ditirambo, a contemporary Italian trattoria near the Campo de’Fiori. There’s an appetizer there that seems quite simple––cheese, tomatoes, herbs––but that just might change your life. It is a cup made of phyllo dough filled with silky, creamy, breathtakingly fresh burrata cheese topped with sundried tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil and a few fresh mint leaves. Ah-mazing.

The Burrata at Ditirambo

The excellent squid stuffed with shrimp and bacon that I had after was delicious, but all I could think about was the burrata.

Later in the week, we went to the morning market at the Campo de’Fiori. I bought a pretty, blue, fake leather bag from a hottie Senegalese street vendor and resisted the urge to buy heavy bottles of olive oil, truffle paste and aged balsamic vinegar (much of which I can find to some degree in Little Italy and at the new market, Eataly, here in NYC).

Against my better judgment we had lunch in one of the restaurants right on the Campo.  It looked like it might be touristy but it had fans with misters to cool off diners and it was midday so Mercato won the lunch lottery and we were pleasantly surprised. We started with glasses of a lovely Vermentino––pale, golden and tasting of warm summer fruit with just a hint of smokiness––and moved on to yet another excellent cheese-based appetizer: fresh ricotta that was creamy and light at the same time sat on a bed of crisp, spicy arugula with sweet, perfectly ripe pears, the whole concoction drizzled with honey and studded with walnuts and pink peppercorns. Smokey and spicy. Crunchy and creamy. Bitter and sweet. I have to stop thinking about it now.

What was left of the ricotta by the time I remembered to take the picture.

And the memorable meals went on and on. Numerous helpings of pork. Italy is not the country for devout Muslims or the pork adverse. Guanciale! Guanciale! Guanciale! I’m working on a pork-related cheer. Of particular note was the spaghetti carbonara (I am now a carbonara snob too. And a guanciale snob.) at Maccheroni, a trattoria near the Pantheon (where apparently FLOTUS ate during the family visit here).

On the second to last night we go to dinner with Gloria, Giovanni and their daughters. They took us to the Isola Tiberina, an island in the middle of the Tiber River. All along this small island and up and down the banks of the Tiber, pop-up open-air restaurants and chic lounges have drawn Romans to the waterfront for the summer months. The ancient bridges and waterside ruins are lit up at night.  Wine flows. Cheese and pork products are served. The happiness in the air is the most delicious meal of the week. (I have no pictures of this cause…)

Remembrance of Gelatos Past

I’ll close with a mention of gelato. I like ice cream and I appreciate all the fancy, artisanal stuff floating around New York right now. But I’m not hardcore. Still, one does not go to Rome and not sample gelato.

My first visit to Rome took place when I was just out of high school (don’t worry about what year that was!). For a moment I thought I was going to be an art history major and my high school art teacher encouraged me to take an art tour of Europe led by a professor from a local university. My teacher took this trip every year and loved it (she didn’t go the year I went cause she was home giving birth to triplets). My father was convinced because I would earn college credits.

In any case, it was a 29-day, 6-country blur. What I remember of Rome is climbing the dome of St. Peter’s (400+ steps I think…never again); a church that contained nothing but the steps Jesus walked (allegedly) to be sentenced by Pontius Pilot’s (elderly nuns went up the steps on their knees, saying the rosary as they went); and my first taste of gelato. It was a deep, intense chocolate. In the mouth it felt like a smooth, airy custard and not like anything I’d ever had.

I was determined to find it again on this trip. My friend Mary warned me that the sensation I was chasing might not actually exist. That it was my memory of my first gelato and not real gelato that I was searching for. I did not want to believe this. I had dark chocolate in Todi. Lemon in Belvagna. Coconut on my first night in Rome at a chain called Blue Ice. I ate gelato on the Piazza Navona and at that trattoria near the Campo de’Fiori. Still, nothing. But I persisted.

I finally stumbled across one of the city’s highest rated gourmet spots, Gelateria del Teatro (pictures of the charming shop were, of course, lost), on a stroll to the Castel Sant’Angelo (pictures of which were also, of course, lost). There I had a scoop of ricotta with honey and pear nestled alongside a scoop of white peach with lavender blossoms. It was sublime and a whole host of other superlatives. But it was not the gelato of my memories. Which is when I knew that Mary had been right. The gelato from the Rome of my memory did not exist. But I was okay with that. The gelato of this Rome would do just fine.

Until the next wandering,

Ciao!

God’s Skillet

In the classic 1962 movie, Lawrence of Arabia, there is a a scene where Lawrence and his comrade-in-arms––played by a young and scorchingly hot Omar Sharif…

Hot Omar.

––are preparing to cross the even more scorching Nafud Desert. Hot Omar explains to Lawrence that the heat that’s about to beat down on them is so relentless that the locals refer to the Nafud as the Anvil of the Sun.

In Rome, a similar experience can be had in summer if one gets lost in the middle of the day as I did on Wednesday. I refer to this experience as walking across God’s Skillet. It came about because of bad map-reading on my part and because my friend Shawn and I allowed ourselves to be distracted in the first place by a cool breeze coming off the Tiber River.

The Ponte (bridge) Fabricio connects the right bank of Rome to the Isola Tiberina, an island in the middle of the Tiber River. During the summer, the shores of the Tiber and of Isola Tiberina are filled with beautiful little pop-up lounges and restaurants. We had a lovely evening at one such place with Mary and her friends and Gloria and her husband Giovanni and their daughters. But because of The Event (see the entry "All Roads Lead to Rome"), there are no photos of this magic moment.

We’d been walking through the neighborhood known as The Ghetto (the area was the Jewish” ghetto” starting in the 13th century). There we’d stumbled across the ruins of the Portico di Ottavia, built sometime after 27 B.C. (it originally housed temples and libraries and later, during the medieval era, a fish market).

The remains of the Portico di Ottavia

More remains of the Portico di Ottavia

Unfortunately there was no shade in that portico, which is why we were drawn to the river. Later map study would reveal we should have zigged instead of zagged. But, in any case, after cooling off at the river we went to find the Coliseum and Roman Forum. Just a few minutes in the heat changed our minds and we decided on the Capitoline Museum instead because it would be in out of the sun (and off The Skillet). Then we walked in circles for an hour. Uphill.

My friend Shawn, by the way, is a FastWalker. I am from the Deep South which means that I have sense enough to know that you’re supposed to move slowly in the heat, and in the shade whenever possible. On top of which I am a stroller by nature. I don’t rush even in NYC. Seeing as how I was on vacation, strolling was most definitely the order of business. This made for some interesting moments during The Skillet incident. But we prevailed eventually and got to the Capitoline, a huge structure right behind a gigantic wedding cake of a victory monument. How we could get lost finding this place is still a mystery. I was too beat down to actually take a picture. Later, though, I got a shot from the top of its steps, looking out over the city.

The view from the top of the Capitoline steps.

I found two magnificent things at the Capitoline. The first was NOT the inadequate air conditioning. It was the caffe at the top of the museum where cooling beverages and a breathtaking view of Rome were had.

A Caffe with a View

Sweeping vistas from the top of the Capitoline.

The second lovely thing? Well, my girlfriends who’d been to Rome before suggested I find a Roman lover forthwith. All my wandering the streets for days on end snapping pictures of every appealing bit of marble has been surprisingly ineffective in this matter. Fortunately, the Capitoline yielded this guy:

I like 'em tall.

He’s the god of war for heaven’s sake! What could go wrong?

Here’s a few more shots of my boyfriend:

And look at those abs. Now THAT'S a "situation."

My guy knows how to strike a pose, doesn't he?

More fun with ancient statuary at the Capitoline:

The Capitoline was the world’s first museum and has lots of really, really, really ancient stuff. Here’s more of it. (Wasn’t that a profound insight?)

A fertility goddess. Ya THINK?!

Very fertile. There would appear to be horses emerging...hopefully not from her special parts.

The myth says that Rome was founded by the twins, Romulus and Remus. Their mother, a princess named Rhea, had been sentenced to Vestal Virgin-hood (basically an ancient nunnery) by her father's evil brother who wanted the throne for himself and hoped to deny the king any future heirs. Well, that didn't work cause Rhea took one of the gods as a lover--some stories say it was Mars, god of war, others say Hercules. Whomever it was took care of that virgin business and Rhea gave birth to twins. The evil uncle promptly put them outside to die. A she-wolf came along and suckled them until they were found by a shepherd and his wife. And the rest is mytho-history.

A detail of the Romulus and Remus statuary.

A sphinx of the Pharaoh Amasis II, who died in 526 B.C., during Egypt's 26th dynasty. The last of Egypt's rulers before the Persian conquest.

Detail of the sphinx of Amasis II

Detail of a wall fresco

Next: “Even the Po-Po are Sexy”

All Roads Lead to Rome…

…but only one goes to Fiumicino

Mary and I are the last to leave Torre Bertona. I gun the little Fiat 500 that it took me a few days to figure out…

*Let us pause a moment for a bit of a rant:  The Fiat is an automatic/manual hybrid that can be put into automatic but still behaves at times like a manual…and I don’t deal in manual transmission…don’t understand why I would even want to…isn’t driving with the rest of the crazy drivers on the road enough to think about without having to think about shifting? It’s like plowing a field with an ox and plow when there’s a perfectly good tractor in the barn…or something like that. Ok. Done.*

…and get the little skate-with-a-motor down the autostrada to Rome’s Fiumicino airport. We survive the insane drivers and return the rental car in time. And then the rental company guy points out that we’ve forgotten to top off the gas tank. We are tired and eager to get to Rome and think we’ll just eat the penalty. Then they show us what it will cost and moments later we are hauling all our shit back into the car.

We go to find a gas station and promptly get lost on some service road. We are just five minutes away from the airport but we can’t seem to get to it. We drive in one direction and then the other and then back. We stop at a laundromat and a guy gives us directions. Then another guy comes up shaking his head and gives us different directions. Miraculously, we get back to the airport, unpack the car again and get on the train that runs continuously between Fiumicino and Rome.

Eternal, Enticing & Familiar

The train is packed and hot. I am unamused and have too much luggage. Grumpily, I vow to ship some things home or pay for a car all the way to the airport for the return trip. I find a folding fan in my bag and once I cool off and calm down I pay attention to the world outside the window. Once we get past the fields of sunflowers (sorry, couldn’t get the camera out fast enough) I start to recognize some things.

First, familiar foliage––mimosa trees and oleander bushes. This is the landscape of south Louisiana. And it’s June. And I’m not in the mountains anymore. I’m about to be really, really hot, I think (and not in a bootylicious way).  I am deeply regretting the decision to wear jeans today.

Secondly, I recognize that this train into Rome fells like the MetroNorth from Westchester into NYC. We pass through Rome’s version of the Bronx. There are miles of featureless buildings, sprouting old-fashioned antennae and clusters of satellite dishes. There is graffiti everywhere; they still tag the trains here.

On the train to Rome

Mary and her fluent Italian offer to make sure I get to my hotel. This is good because when we first emerge from Termini, Rome’s main train station, we exit on the west side and approach the string of taxis at the curb. Unfortunately, this is the asshole taxi line.  Just take my word for it. We find the official taxi line on the north side of the station and get to my hotel with no further drama. Along the way we notice that the streets are lined with orange trees (I would have photos of this were it not for a certain incident I discuss at the end of this post). We wonder if people pick and eat them. Or if ripe oranges fall on people’s heads and car windshields. The driver tells us no to the former––the oranges are a non-edible type––and yes to the latter. Clearly this is not a litigious city.

My hotel, the Splendide, is an old grand dame in the Veneto section of Rome. In its La Dolce Vita heyday paparazzi and starlets stalked these streets, but now it’s mostly tourists.

The Splendide Royal on Via Porta Pinciana

My friend Shawn is already checked in and I take in the faded glory of our room with relief (Confession: when it comes to travel, I don’t do hostels. I don’t do “gritty and real.” I prefer adjectives like “boutique-y” or “sleek” or “luxurious.” Yeah, I’m fancy. ). I read plenty of dire warnings about what to expect from accommodations in Rome, but this room is lovely in a throwback kind of way. Ornate plaster moldings and chipped, gilded millwork. A huge white marble bathroom and a walk-in wood-paneled closet. And blessed, blessed air conditioning.

I change out of the ill-conceived jeans and we head out to the famed Via Veneto and Harry’s Bar for a cocktail and a snack.  Harry’s is also a relic from the nabe’s glammy past. If you go, skip the food except for the free potato chips and just get yourself an overpriced cocktail; pretend the couple at the table next to you is Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, then keep it moving.

We stroll down the Via Veneto, essentially the Fifth Ave of Rome and do shamelessly tourist-y things like snap photos of shoes in the display windows. Later we find our way to the Via Condotti, Rome’s famed high-end fashion extravaganza and I snap photos of the Valentino store and bags at Prada, knowing that’s the closest my current tax bracket will allow me to get to the artistry.

On that first afternoon, we were, in theory, looking for a shoe store for Shawn cause she broke a strap on one of her sandals, but any excuse to roam would have done. We walk and walk. Which becomes the theme for the week. I had planned to resist the urge to be busy and to sit on piazzas and sip cool drinks, maybe read. Jot clever things down in my journal.  But Rome has other plans for me.

I cannot resist these streets. Around every corner, literally, there is something magnificent. We wander into courtyards and open doorways, drawn in out of the heat by the cool breath of marble (and everything is covered in marble).  Usually the structure I’m snapping pictures of just turns out to be an apartment or office building or library––albeit one that’s 2000 years old.  Sometimes these are government offices and such and we get the no-no finger shake and have to leave. This does not phase us.

Random Beauty.

We passed this doorway and had to go in.

It was vast and empty. There was a placard explaining things. In Italian. We think this is where they signed the constitution that unified Italy in the mid-1800s. The building is the Chiesa (church) di Sant'ivo Alla Sapienza, finished in 1660.

Random beautiful entryway. Maybe an apartment building.

A street with a view.

Another random courtyard.

We think it was a library or a school. In any case they didn't kick us out when we came in and started taking pictures.

In less than a day we have become the tourists we roll our eyes at on the streets of New York. Only, we are just two people. But Rome is about to be besieged by hordes. The tourist season is in third gear with its foot on the clutch, about to kick it to fifth. We see a few big groups, freshly belched from the belly of a tour bus, led by their general bearing a homemade standard (an upraised hat, a stuffed animal on a stick) for the army to follow. We run from them. Sometimes we find ourselves overtaken and dart across streets and into alleys to escape.

There are always crowds around the Trevi Fountain.

Tour guides hoist totems for their army to follow.

Crowds descend upon the Spanish Steps.

I’m here three days before I can bear to actually go inside a museum because the outside is just so ridiculously beautiful. There would be many, many more shots of this ridiculous beauty if I HAD NOT LOST MY CAMERA THE DAY BEFORE WE LEFT.  Fortunately, I had downloaded many photos before that unfortunate event (heretofore referred to as THE EVENT). Unfortunately, many magic moments in the Eternal City were lost. For instance, nighttime at the Coliseum, which I’d been trying to get to all week and finally did on Friday. Right before THE EVENT.

But I’m getting over it. Slowly.

Next: “Walking across God’s Skillet,” “Even the Po-Po are Sexy” and “Oh God, The Cheese!”

Passages

It may seem like my purpose here in Umbria is to spend time mooning over the landscape, but I’m here primarily for a writing workshop. I end up being among the first two writers to be workshopped. My concerns about whether the rest of the writers, who are significantly younger than I, will be aggressive enough in their assessment of my work are quickly put to rest. The 20-somethings know their shit and they’re ruthless. Some of the writing is beautiful, but…. They rip me a new one, but in a gentile, highly intelligent and productive way. Gosh I miss grad school.

Workshop Session

My work is cut out for me for the week. In the section I shared the character comes across as weak and a mere observer. There is too much flashback, not enough scene work. No one seems to know what the character wants; I must finally admit that though I’ve been stabbing at the beast of this novel off and on for the better part of the last decade, neither do I. My stomach lurches every time I think of the time and student loans that have gone into this endeavor, but I tell my doubts to shut up.

I made the investment in this trip as a sort of sacrifice to the gods of my fiction dreams. The deities have been sorely neglected by yours truly in favor of the quick satisfaction and regular paycheck of advertising copywriting––and they are not amused. Thus far they have laughed in the face of my pitiful attempts to finish the novel I started in my MFA program. I pray that the absurd cost of the airline ticket and the sting of being taken to the woodshed by a group of ladies who, for the most part, were not alive when I was in high school, will be sacrifice enough to get me, finally, across my own personal River Styx.

I go through the written comments from the group. I turn the story over and over in my head. I relish being in a workshop again among people who have a deep love for books and writing and take the minutia very seriously; whose eyes light up when discussing their Moby Dick passion project (one of the girls is translating Melville’s Moby Dick from 19^th century English to a 21^st century vernacular just cause she likes it so much).

When we are not discussing literary ephemera, reading or writing (in addition to the pieces we brought with us, Mary gives us daily “prompts” or thought-starters that we must create short pieces around and read in workshop the following morning), there are afternoon excursions.

One day we go to Todi, the 2000+-year-old city perched at the top of a nearby hill (mountain?). There we wander narrow passages and touch ancient stones.

I allow my ego to convince me I can follow a tour guide up 150 steps to the top of the bell tower of one of the churches. My ego tells me that I must make a habit of embracing things that are hard so that I can get past the challenges that will stand between me and completed fiction projects.  Halfway up, my quads and hamstrings join the conversation, letting my ego know that it is an idiot. My ego responds with a jibe about my completion issues. Not to mention all that homemade ricotta we have for breakfast each morning. My lungs just cry. I tell everybody to shut the f#@$ up and hike the rest of the way to the top.

From the tower windows I look down on Todi’s terraces, terracotta rooftops and ancient churches. The hills and valleys of Umbria stretch off to the horizon.

Todi Rooftops

View from a Todi Bell Tower

I snap a picture of pigeon (or very small angel) wings on the floor of the bell tower.

Throughout the week we visit other walled mountaintop wonders. In Montefalco there is a lookout over a vast swath of the region. We see the village of Assisi (birthplace of St. Francis) clustered at the foot of a mountain.

The view from Montefalco

Later we walk honeysuckled draped cobblestone lanes and (on Via Porta Camiano––pass through if you’re in the nabe) stop to gape at one elderly woman’s extraordinary hydrangeas.

A street in Montefalco

When she emerges from her house one of the girls from the workshop, Vicky, strikes up a conversation. Only Vicky doesn’t speak Italian, just a little Spanish. And the elderly woman, Filamena, only speaks Italian. But Vicky––as she is on all our excursions––is determined to engage and does so with great enthusiasm and descriptive hand gestures. We marvel at their interaction until Mary intercedes and provides Italian-English translation. When we leave her a little while later, Filamena sends us off with a sweet smile and a blessing: Have a good time tonight, she says. Eat well and drink well. Always stay as young and healthy and beautiful as you are right now. We all tear up.

Hydrangeas and blessings

That same night we go to a medieval festival in Bevagna, which was at its peak during medieval times, so all those folks in costume didn’t look quite as nutty as they do when you spot them in some field in upstate New York.

Medieval festival in a Medieval town.

We take Filamena’s blessing to heart and our party of 12 consumes an unholy amount of the most extraordinary pizza we’ve ever encountered. Shout out to Al Forno Degli Angeli in Bevagna. They know what the hell to do with a piece of guanciale.

12 ladies, 12 pizzas, 6 bottles of wine.

On Friday we visit Titignano. In a previous life it was a hunting palace for the Corsini princes (the Corsinis, like all Italian aristos, have a pope in the family from way back when). Today it is a hotel and winery. We lounge by the pool, have a tour of the wine cellar and a tasting of wine, spumante and olive oil. Take in more glorious vistas. Soak up moonlight.

The view from the old hunting palace of the Corsini princes.

Down into the wine cellar

Julio schools us: the smaller the bubbles the better the bubbly

Speaking of moonlight. One evening Gloria cooks for us at her house in the village. At a table outside under fruit trees we eat homemade pesto and white cherries from a tree in her yard.

Gloria's house and her yard of fruit trees

We’re sipping icy cold lemoncello when someone notices the moon. We’d been only loosely connected with news and information and knew nothing of this full lunar eclipse. The sky over Pian San Martino is inky black and cloudless. We move down Gloria’s long driveway so we can see the blood-red moon hanging over Todi on its hilltop. We marvel at the perfection of it all and our good fortune to be in this place at this time. The next morning Mary assigns us a prompt around a lunar eclipse. I imagined what it might feel like if the sense of wonder and infinite possibilities we’d felt that night was turned on its head.

Last Night

Finally, impossibly, the week is drawing to a close. Most of the time we don’t know what day it is, but by Friday reality begins to insert itself again. Saturday is the last of the workshops of the work we submitted. On Sunday afternoon we must read our revisions of our submissions based on the group’s comments. For me, it is critical that I have the novel fix figured out. I have had conversations with Mary and the others. I’ve made some big decisions about a couple key characters, POV and structure but on Friday I have not, as of yet, produced any of these new improved words.

View from the terrace

I sit on the breakfast terrace and stare at the screen. I read. I despair.

On Saturday, though it pains me just a little, I skip the afternoon excursion to see the Giotto frescos at Assisi. I take up residence on the breakfast terrace and then the upper terrace. I write a passage making the recommended shift from third person to first person POV; I’d toyed with that approach years ago but this time it felt different. I crank out six new pages that afternoon and feel really good about them. After dinner I sit in bed and do one more.

Our adopted nabe dog, who we named Cheesebread, keeps me company.

The next morning, I am almost certain that I have unlocked a new door. Before the final workshop I write a short poem for the final prompt––except I don’t write poetry so that turns out, um, interesting. Then I return to the new novel section and crank out another two pages. I’m certain, but my heart is still in my throat when I read aloud. The room bursts into applause and I can tell it is sincere. I’m a crier but I manage to keep it together.

Throughout the afternoon, members of the group tell me how much they admired the work and the transformation and the decisions that were made. I thank them for their feedback and mean it. The changes seem to make so much sense that I can’t believe I didn’t see it before; I would never have gotten there without them.  I spend the remainder of the day feeling blissful and weightless… Though the devil on my shoulder points out that I won’t have a peaceful Umbrian country house and uninterrupted hours when I return to NYC. I ignore the little bastard and go about snapping pictures like a crazy person, wanting to take as much of Torre Bertona as I can back to real life.

Gloria's passion flower vine. Don't they look like alien vessels?

Driving through the village, Pian di San Martino

On our last night Gloria arranges a tasting of local wines and cheeses and hires a musician friend to serenade us. We’re several bottles in when a corny cover of Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight has us singing shamelessly along. We are so enthusiastic that, fittingly, the singer closes his set with it.

Local wines and cheeses

A local singer

A last look at Torre Bertona

In hindsight, I find it conveniently metaphoric that throughout the trip I’ve been fascinated with doorways. Throughout Umbria (and in Rome too) the doors are distinctive, beautiful.

Next: All roads lead to Rome!

Italy

Back in January I got an email from my former MFA thesis advisor, Mary Morris (http://www.marymorris.net/), inviting me to a writing workshop in Italy. I had not been on a serious vacation––serious meaning far away and for at least 10 days––since a 2007 (or was it 2006?) excursion to Morocco. Bopping over to Italy for a week in the Umbrian countryside was wildly appealing. The novel I’d been working on under my advisor remained stubbornly unfinished. I was exhausted from a demanding job at an advertising agency. Winter was whuppin’ my arse.

But, there was that job. The pundits said the recession recovery was fragile at best; shouldn’t I be saving money?

Naturally, I hit the reply button and typed: “Yes! I’m in!”

Five months later I’m sitting on the terrace at a country house called Case di Torre Bertona (http://www.torrebertona.it/?lingua=2) in the hills of Umbria. It sits just up from the tiny village of Pian di San Martino, surrounded by terraced gardens and farms with terrecotta roofs and coops of very vocal poultry.

The view from Torre Bertona

The lower garden.

Umbria is a region is about two hours north of Rome, just south of Tuscany, in the middle of a fairytale. Seriously. Vineyards, olive groves and sunflower fields (though the sunflowers don’t bloom until July) run like patchwork down hillsides. 2000-year-old walled cities perch on mountaintops. Grape vines hang over walls. Church bells ring in old stone steeples. During the day it smells like honeysuckle. At night, like jasmine. I’m pretty sure that if I look hard enough there will be fairies.

Light over the Umbrian countryside.

“Torre” means “tower” and “Bertona,” I’m told means something like “big Robert.” Big Robert was apparently a nobleman in the nearby city of Todi and decided to build his family a little summer retreat. This second home was built, oh, about 600 years ago. There are parts of the tower itself that are even older. Which probably explains the dungeon; folks put such features to good use way back when.

The 2000-year-old city of Todi.

The dungeon at Torre Bertona.

Today, Torre Bertona belongs to a lovely woman named Gloria Cirocchi, a friend of Mary’s, who greeted us upon arrival with a homemade antipasti spread of traditional Umbrian dishes (which, blessedly meant lots of things with truffle oil) and the official white wine of the region, Grecchetto. I’m happy to report that you will NOT get a headache from Grecchetto, no matter how much you drink. This is scientifically proven…by me.

Gloria welcomes us to Torre Bertona

Gloria's glorious antipasti

I started this week with only three goals: have a breakthrough on my novel, relax, blog. After the first night and a magical midnight encounter with a canopy of fireflies along the lane that leads to Torre Bertona, I amended that list to novel and relaxation. Which means I can’t believe I’ve summoned up the effort to do this blog entry. I just felt guilty keeping it all to myself. There are more annoyingly beautiful photos to share, little excursions to discuss, gelato and pizza recommendations to make. But this is my last full day in Umbria and I’ve got more writing to squeeze in (yes, there’s been a novel breakthrough…yay!), vistas to gaze upon, Grecchetto to drink. Tomorrow I leave the lovely ladies of the workshop and head to Rome. More to come…ciao!

Arriving

The Road to Torre Bertano