Passignano sul Trasimeno

Lake Trasimeno is the most beautiful greenish-blue in the sunlight. It's a big lake, but not so large you can't see all the other shores. In the center is an island with a castle.

The town begins across the street from the lake. There are a couple blocks of level ground where the restaurants and stores are located. Then the walkways begin to rise, quite quickly, winding up the hill on tiny steep paths or staircases into the old City. We live just up the path from the tower, where the bells ring every quarter hour.

The most marked feature of the town are the swallows circling and crying in the air. There are so many of them creating this endless movement and sound. Yesterday, while having lunch in a small piazza, I suddenly felt like I was under a reverse disco ball- the shadows of flying birds cast on the walls read like an inverse of the bright reflections that spin up the walls around the dance floor.

La nostra casa (our house) is a three-story stone townhouse from medieval times. It's about 15' wide and 35' long, with windows on the entry side. They renovated recently, using a very good architect, and through a system of skylights and a glass floor manage to penetrate a bit into the dark interior. The thick stone walls keep the temperature cool and level despite the day getting hotter.

I'm going to wrap this up now, as we need to walk over to the train station to get internet and post it. Then it's off to pizza for lunch.

siamo arrivati a Roma

It's humid and hot and I am immediately happy. Having lived so many years in dry climates, to me humidity says, "vacation," causing a perceptible shift towards relaxation.

But then we have to drag all of our stuff through the interminable termini station and down six blocks to the hotel. I wear my backpack and carry an extra bag of books while rolling my giant suitcase behind me. John wears his backpack, carries another bag of books, and rolls both his giant suitcase and our smaller shared suitcase. We look like people who don't know how to pack. We constantly tell anyone who will listen that we're here for months and that's why we have so much luggage. Nobody cares, but it makes us feel a bit less embarassed by our bulk. We want to start shedding stuff, but we've been warned that the Cotswalds might be cold already in October, so for now we still need to hold onto our sweaters and we travel with an entourage of baggage.

Rome was magnificent, as always. Coming down a small street into the Pantheon struck wonder, as it always does. Piazza Navona was full at 10:30 at night with street performers, vendors and people eating gelato. We passed a short traffic block (all the Italians standing outside their cars having a cigarette or arguing with the traffic cop) while the cross street was cleared for a motorcade- probably Berlesconi, we were told.

Strangely, John and I, both independently, felt a bit exhausted by it all: the noise, the traffic, the smog, the hustle and bustle. In our minds this was our year to get out of the City, and as much as we love Rome, it is, at the end, a City. So we will head to Passignano sul Trasimeno and see if we actually even like the small-town life.

Ode to things Scottish that I love

Highland Cows

How can you not love a hairy cow? John kept asking, "can you see there, buddy?". We even found a children's book called Hamish the Highland Cow Gets a Haircut.

Admittedly, I became a bit obsessed with seeing more Highland cows forcing John to follow tiny out-of-the-way roads through villages searching each field we passed. We even pulled up to a zoo, but while they did have polar bears and penguins, they did not have Highland cows. They told us to look in the field after the gas station in the next town.

Closes

Alleyways are called closes, and there are tons of them throughout Edinburgh. I think "close" captures the spatial experience so much more- talking about the tall walls being so close on both sides, how close you come to people passing, etc. Most of these closes are only 3 to 5 feet wide, and go the full 6 to 8 stories of the adjoining buildings. You understand where JK Rowling got the idea for Diagon Alley.

Irn Bru

Scotland's beloved soda matches Coca Cola in sales here, helped by Irn Bru's controversial ad campaigns (see this website for some pretty funny ones www.irn-bru.co.uk/advert/up-irns/html). John found it disgusting, but it reminded me of the Aruban soda, Cora, and I loved it. Granted, it still hasn't phased out the use of dangerous colorants and it doesn't list caffeine but apparently has it, and I think it has actual iron in it, so you probably shouldn't start drinking it every day....

Sticky toffee pudding

I cannot believe I have lived for so long without knowing that sticky toffee pudding exists. Why do we not have this amazing dessert in the States? If you've never had it, imagine a piece of cake that's been warmed up, caramel poured on top, and served with a scoop of ice cream. Like really? How do we not have this? Fortunately it's a British thing, so hopefully I can get it in the Cotswalds this fall.

We are trying haggis tonight, but while we are eating it at an organic, locally-sourced restaurant, I'm still not sure it's going to make it on this list.

Walking on Skye

While crossing the Atlantic we met an English geologist, Peter, who emailed us a few hikes he recommended on Skye. Most of them had the caveat, "must be clear weather to take this hike." Unfortunately Skye means "misting cloud" in old Norse, and we can see why, as the clouds rolled in late Wednesday morning and setttled on the tops of the mountains.

Feeling intrepid, however, we headed to the Old Man of Storr rock formations determined to follow one of Peter's recommended hikes. The first part took us through a dark pine forest (see how dark it is in the picture? The flash was on and I lightened the photo digitally). The trees drop their needles on the bottom, feeding all their nutrients to the to the top, so below the canopy it looks like a spooky dark and dead forest.

Emerging from the forest, you immediately see the rock formations, including the tower referred to as the Old Man. These are basaltic rock from old volcanoes carved up as the glaciers moved through.

Up to this point we were on the main trail, but now the directions said to head off to the right. I had taken detailed notes off the website because the directions were often as vague as, "when the field to your left has no stones, turn and climb up to the ridge." We climbed over a fence, passed a bunch of surprised goats, and continued around the back of the rock formations, where we suddenly found ourselves high above a gorgeous valley. At this point it begins to drizzle a bit, and the wind starts to blow. Like, really blow. Like at times you have to hunker down so you don't get blown over.

But really, the gusts are just occasional, so we keep going. Once we get up to the ridge, we are supposed to follow it west for a bit, being careful not to get too close to the escarpment as apparently the rock is crumbly and liable to collapse. The rain and wind at this point are so bad that John has to stop every five minutes to clean his glasses, and the rest of the time he has to hold them on his face for fear they'll blow off. The visibility is about 15 feet and we are hard pressed to know whether we are even on the ridge, much less heading west.

When John learns that to get back down the hill we're supposed to follow a specific gulley, and we can't see the gullies for fear of getting too close to the escarpment, we give up, retrace our steps and decide to go to the Talisker whiskey distillery instead.

On the way back down the Old Man of Storr formations have become shrouded in cloud as well. John says he finds it creepy, but yet his hair takes the form of devil's horns....

Up to the Isle of Skye, a wee travelogue

Tuesday, at 12:30 on the dot, we arrived at Hertz and were informed that because nobody brought their car back, there were no cars to go out. Really? Luckily we calmly ate our packed lunch, and a car turned up 1/2 hour later, and we were able to drive away looking like nice people (important as an American, I think) unlike the Scottish couple raising hell in the agency as we left.

We took the road past Stirling and through the north end of the Lock Lomond & The Trossachs National Park. The narrow freeway wrapped around lakes dotted with rustic rental cabins, green hillsides rising to both sides. The most spectacular portion, Glen Orchy, was between Bridge of Orchy and Glencoe. Glen means "valley" here from the Gaelic Gleann, and refers specifically to a U-shaped valley carved by Glaciers.

In Fort William we stopped to investigate taking the ferry to Isle of Skye, but it was a bit too late at this point, so we skipped the westward portion where you can see the old aqueduct made famous in the Harry Potter movies, and continued north to Invergarry before heading west again. Inver is Gaelic for the mouth of a river or lake, so many towns are called Inver something as this whole region is filled with rivers and lochs.

Heading west, the forest began to lessen, and suddenly we were driving through valleys with huge barren mounds on each side. Their wrinkled sides made be think that they were actually giant men who fell asleep wrapped in blankets until the moss grew over them. I kept describing this sense to John who would have none of it. However, we later found out that the old Gaelic legends often speak of mountains as Giants. Charles Dickens even called the west Highlands "a burial ground of a race of giants." John will still have none of it.

Just before the bridge to Skye was one of the most picturesque castles ever, the Eileen Donan of the clan Macrae on its own little island. Scotland is full of castles. You can't drive for 10 minutes without seeing another castle, up on hills or rocky crags, out on islands, peeking out above a forest. It's almost like castle here really means big house.

Finally around 6:30 we crossed the bridge over into Skye. A tired John now had to not only deal with driving on the other side of the road and shifting with his left hand, but with single-lane roads that had pull-outs (or laybys as they're called here) every 100 meters or so to deal with traffic coming the other way, and errant sheep. We stopped for dinner in Portree, finally got to our hotel in Flodigarry by 9:00, had the "wee dram" of whiskey offered, and quickly fell asleep.

Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Art

At the end of the 19th Century, William Morris and John Ruskin began the Arts and Crafts movement by disparaging the results of industrialization and urging a return to the craftsmanship of yore.

In this vein, in 1897, a 28 year old part-time student at the Glasgow School of Art won a competition to design the esteemed school's new building. While it is amazing that one so young and inexperienced could successfully complete such a huge commission, after visiting, I now think that only a young student would have the energy, excitement and hubris to design a building like this, in which every single piece is a hand-crafted masterpiece.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was working at an architecture firm during the day while studying for his degree at night. The daytime job helped, since his competition entry was seen as very professional. The board of the school allotted 14,000 pounds for the building, which is about a quarter of what would be needed to build a building that size, much less one requiring tons of skilled labor to craft intricate details. So of course construction started around 1898, they got about a floor and a half in, and they ran out of money. The construction went on hold.


In 1907, they raised more money and construction began again, but now the board wanted an additional floor of classrooms, and as always, they wanted Mackintosh to cut costs. Mackintosh simultaneously solved issues that arose with the first phase of construction as he created the additional story (using stairwells to block windows that had been deemed too bright, etc.), but also kept himself happy (designing beds for his cats into the meeting room which he was using as an office), and he maintained the high level of specificity and craft in the design.


The building opened in 1909, and immediately established an international reputation for Mackintosh. By 1913 however, the economy was down, most architecture firms were failing, and Mackintosh decided to use his design skills for a more lucrative field. He turned to watercolors and textile design, moved to London, and moved on.

Hollyrood Abbey

In the early middle ages, a King of Scotland claimed that right before he was gored to death by a stag, which clearly didn't like his hunting expedition, a glowing cross stunned the stag and saved his life. Now I might have taken this divine intervention as a sign to stop hunting, but the King chose to build Hollyrood Abbey instead.

For the next few hundred years it was actually a very important national center, used for meetings of the Scottish Parliament and, in an attached structure, as a residence for royalty.

Around 1500, a larger royal residence, Hollyrood Palace was built next door. This was really just in time, because soon after the Abbey was sacked by British armies. It was then repeatedly plundered and damaged by townsfolk during the multiple reformations, and in the end, it turned out that the stone vaulted roof just wasn't built that well, and it collapsed during a storm at the end of the 18th Century. Now it's a glorious ruin at the back of the Palace.

Despite its long period of deterioration, the Abbey remained important, mostly as a sanctuary from debtor's prison. Debtors could roam freely on the large grounds once accepted into sanctuary, and a secondary society flourished within the sanctuary grounds to feed and house them. On Sundays, debtors could visit wives and families in town since all legal offices were closed. Our favorite asylum seeker was the Duke d'Artois, later Charles X of France, who escaped the French Revolution and lived in Hollyrood Palace while in exile, not caring a whim about his bankrupt state while under sanctuary.

But maybe my favorite, albeit morbid, story about Hollyrood Abbey has to do with Mary Queen of Scots. Her first husband died soon after marriage, and she married Lord Darnley next. He proved to be a power-hungry loser and Mary wasn't so happy. But she had a private secretary, David Rizzio, with whom she became very close. Darnley, obviously, didn't like that one bit, especially the rumors that the child Mary carried was fathered by Rizzio. So one day Lord Darnley and some hoodlum Protestant nobles entered Mary's private chambers, dragged Rizzio out despite him clinging to the skirts of a now very pregnant Mary, pulled him into Mary's private chapel and stabbed him an enormous number of times. The story is that they later buried him under the stairs of Hollyrood Abbey so that Rizzio would be stomped on throughout time.

Greyfriars Bobby

In the early 19th Century, a man named John Gray joined the Edinburgh police force. One of the requirements of this post was a watch dog, so he bought a Skye Terrier that he jokingly named Bobby.

John Gray and Bobby did their rounds for years until Gray fell ill with tuberculosis in 1858 and died. They buried him in Greyfriars Churchyard. For the next 14 years, until the dog's own death, Bobby kept watch over the grave, leaving only to get food.

At 1:00 each day, when the gun would fire from Nelson's Monument so ships could set their clocks (this still occurs), crowds would gather by Greyfriars Churchyard to watch Bobby leave for his lunch.

Bobby's loyalty is now revered here in Edinburgh, and he has his own gravestone, a statue, and pubs named after him. Yesterday we stopped by his grave, and there were flowers and tributes left. One nearest the grave, written by a kid, said,"Bobby, you were a very brave dog."

All of this makes us long for Bug. She looks quite like the statues of Bobby, and maybe she even has some Skye Terrier in her. Jack says she still sneaks into John's room to sleep on his pillow. We would like to believe it's largely because she misses John. However, we suspect that while that may be a part of it, the larger reason is that she likes sleeping on a soft spot from which she's been forbidden.

London's theatre district

We first stopped into La Maison Bertaux because the guidebook described it as having, "a faithful clientele, who love its delicious coffee and heavenly cakes." It's a tiny little room behind a window filled with pastries. John definitely found his cake heavenly, because he quickly gobbled it all up without leaving a bite for me. On our way out, John read the guidebook snippet to the owners, and jokingly put in that free cakes were given to Americans who visited on Mondays. They laughed and then handed us a pain au chocolat. We happily munched our way through the pain in the cloister of Westminster Abbey.

So the next morning for breakfast, obviously, we went back to Maison Bertaux. Only the blond owner was there, and she was busily running about the small room occassionally sitting with "faithful clientele" and/or talking on the phone. We happily ate the pastries she recommended and read our books.

But then, while the blond owner was sitting next to a tall man, the phone rang, a piercing, annoying shrill. Everyone looked up, looked at the blond and looked at the phone. She glumly said that it was just work, and she didn't want to answer it, immediately transforming a room of strangers into a cohesive group that just wanted the blond to answer the phone. Finally, at the encouragement of the tall man, she got up to answer, but of course the caller was already gone.

A few people took their leave at this point, including the tall man, leaving only John and I in the little room, and so the blond owner turned her conversation on us. Apparently the tall man was Gary, a producer in Soho, and Gary used to be in love with the blond. She, feeling only friendship for Gary, finally decided to set him up with a friend to get him off her back. Although, from the story, it wasn't clear if she specifically set Gary up, or if she just showed up with a bunch of her friends one night who all immediately fell for Gary, and the "set up" was actually just the woman that actually got him. Anyway, Reina, the one who ended up with Gary, is apparently now a bitch according to the blond, and never calls her.

Now the story takes a turn, and the blond owner tells us about Larry. Larry used to live in a three-story house with his daughter living on the 2nd floor, and he and his wife on the 3rd. One evening while the couple is having an argument, the wife falls out the 3rd-floor window to her death. Unfortunately this is witnessed by the daughter as the body falls past her 2nd-floor window. Larry is accussed of murder, but later acquitted. Apparently Larry had a hard time pulling himself together after all that, and the blond helped him by hiring him as a builder.

While John and I marvel at the horror of this story and wonder why the blond is telling us this, she wraps it back to Gary. Reina and Gary bought a flat together, and the blond recommended Larry as a builder. Reina hasn't called the blond since the set up, but she does finally call to talk about what a terrible job Larry is doing, and says, "I'm just telling you this since Larry is your friend," which enrages the blond, because Larry, "is just her f***ing builder."

We get a few more stories of Reina's awfulness, and I'm beginning to feel very badly for this Gary guy. But then the blond tells us that once Gary went to Hawaii and brought her back a sarong. She was offended by the purchase because she can't stand sarongs, and in front of Gary she took the sarong, opened a drawer, threw it in, and slammed the drawer. Okay, Gary is a glutton for punishment.

I walk out of Maison Bertaux a bit shell shocked, but John, who was not surprised by any of it, points out that this is the theatre district and suddenly all the drama makes sense. So go to Maison Bertaux for the pastry, but if you can, try to get a good story as well.

Crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2

When the Titanic was built, it was still cheap to create elaborate carvings, design one-off carpets, install wood paneling for walls, etc.... The Queen Mary 2 was designed to try and return to the elegance of these old-world ocean liners, but these days when you see faux-painted marble columns, elaborate carpet patterns, large wall art, and bright chandeliers, you get.... Las Vegas. Add to that a Casino on Deck 2, cafeteria-style eating if you want it on Deck 7, and a large percentage of cotton toppers, and you can think that you are in Las Vegas (albeit with a slightly rolling floor).

However, here are my tips for enjoying the Queen Mary 2 for all its old-world elegance:

1) Always eat in the dining room. There is a full waitstaff wearing tails ready to serve you at all three meals. Why would anyone want to stand in line in a cafeteria? We got upgraded (thanks Vovo) to the Brittania Club, which meant we could eat at any point during meal times but at a reserved table. Otherwise you choose early or late seating (6:30 or 8:30).

2) Enjoy dressing up for dinner every night, even if your husband rented his tuxedo on board and was given a jacket where the sleeves fit, but the shoulders are way too wide (a la David Byrne), has to use safety pins for cufflinks and wears dark blue tennies with a yellow stripe because those are his darkest-colored shoes. He'll still look handsome and you'll still get to wear all your fancy dresses.

3) Attend the lectures, which are typically very good, and reminded me that this was a major form of entertainment before radio. I felt like Helena Bonham Carter at the beginning of Howard's End.

4) Spring for a room with a balcony (which is most of the rooms). The full-height glass doors onto the balcony make the cabin feel larger, and on nice days it's lovely to read out there.

We had lots of fog, and the ship whistle went all night (it sounds like a fog horn), and it felt like you had stepped back into time. We've toyed with the idea of taking the ship back....