axmk.com : adriatic 2008

It was a pretty easy trip, all things considered, but it still took over 24 hours. We drove for 4 hours, then flew on a 747 for 8 hours and an A320 for 2 more hours. Then we took a bus from the Milan airport to the city, where we caught the train to Desenzano. Alice picked us up & drove us the last 5 minutes to her folks' house. So we arrived at Andrea & Grazia's a bit ragged, having plane-train-automobiled (not in that order)!

[Back story on how we know Andrea & Grazia: Andrea was an exchange student with Howard's family in 1979 & never lost touch. I met Andrea & then-girlfriend Grazia when they joined How's family at the Jersey Shore while How & I were dating in college. So, we've all known each other for almost 30 years!]

The bulk of our first days were a blur of overcoming jetlag. But our waking moments were pretty exciting.

One day, the Mille Miglia was diverted through our friends' tiny town of Rivoltella because of road construction. This annual historic and classic car tour is inspired by the 1000 mile Mille Miglia, an Italian open-road endurance race that ran from the 20s to late 50s. Then, as now, it started in the nearby town of Brescia. For hours we shouted and gawked as almost 400 of the worlds' most desirable (and expensive) old cars roared past.

Another day we shouted again at the championship soccer game for our friends' 11-year-old. His team came in 3rd & Rino went home with their trophy.

Andrea & Grazia have generously shared us with their friends, most of whom speak several languages (like themselves) so we've had wonderful visits with locals. Conversations in simultaneous Italian, French, English, and Spanish, all at the typical Italian volume “11” can be quite hilarious!

We joined their friends Stephano & Pascuale & their daughters for dinner at an authentic little trattoria that even Andrea hadn't heard of. We gorged ourselves on traditional pastas, as well as some experimental stuff like strawberry risotto and a selection of boiled meats, including turkey (boiled turkey?) Of course, we drank plenty of vino and, except for the kids tricking Andrea into drinking vinegar disguised as wine, it was great fun. “Fantastico!” as Stephano would say.

Andrea & Grazia's place in Rivoltella is minutes from Desenzano & Sirmione, both tourist destinations on Lago di Garda, the biggest of the Italian “finger lakes”. In the summer, the area is a madhouse of European tourists, but in May it is still pretty quiet. Andrea & I went for a little drive to both areas, so he could show me the tricks of driving his Mercedes CLK 200 Kompressor convertible, which he's loaning us to storm around in. Both towns are delightful old stone villages on the water, decked out for tourists & bristling with sailboats. Sirmione also has a stone-walled section with an honest-to-goodness Medieval castle, and the ruins of a Roman villa!

We finally got underway after almost a week, breaking away from the “mother ship” of Andrea & Grazia's. The weather has sucked colossally; rain all day, every day, for a week, and sometimes downright heavy. After much consideration, we reversed our plans, and started driving counter-clockwise, down through Italy.

Our first stop was Olvieto, a town in Umbria sufficiently attractive for its placement right on the A-1 autostrada. But it was a genuinely desirable destination; a lovely hill town with cobbled streets & a duomo with a facade to beat all. I've never seen a cathedral exterior with such intricate mosaics (not to mention the sculpture.) The economic value of the labor associated with cutting, fitting, and laying all the mosaics, which yields a singularly stunning external expression of course, is staggering. One wonders what might have transpired during the middle ages had the church not sucked the livelihood out of the majority of the European population.

We pushed on to the Amalfi Coast along a peninsula south of Naples, a popular vacation destination and home of the notable island of Capri. The 20 km. drive along the coast was some of the most severe white-knuckle driving I've experienced –- due in equal parts to the narrow & switch-back laden roads, the relentlessly casual Italian drivers who think nothing of rounding a blind curve straddling both lanes, and the bursts of rain that completely overwhelmed the capacity of the Mercedes' windshield wipers. Those 20 km required a full hour to navigate, and succeeded in making even Howard nauseous. He assured me that the views were spectacular, however. Clinging to the sheer cliffs afforded a splendid view of the ocean as well as the determinedly terraced land above, to which lemon trees & vineyards clung grimly.

After we arrived, we spent a few moments lying on our hotel bed, catching our breath, and looking at things that didn't spin by in a blur. We then dashed through the rain to a nearby trattoria, only to be confronted with a whole, trussed, apple-in-the-mouth, roasted pig! It was on a platter the size of a coffee table, and required 2 waiters to move. We enjoyed more simple fare – pasta & wine. [Side note to those who know my dining preferences: you will be amazed & possibly delighted to learn that I have taken to truffles. Brother-in-law Peter is responsible, by introducing shaved truffle to his chicken marsala & exposing me to the wonderful nutty, meaty flavor. This is relevant only because I willingly ordered & ate a truffle-laden pasta at this particular trattoria. Thought you should know.]

The next day dawned with our first glimpse of rain-free sky in a week. I took the opportunity to climb around the town – and I do mean climb. Amalfi is draped densely over the steep sides of a ravine that ends at the ocean, and most of the town is inaccessible to vehicles or anyone who hasn't recently trained for a triathlon. I counted: it was 200 steps up one series of switch-back passageways to the last house on a “block”. And the only people I passed were stout old matrons in sensible shoes carrying 80 pounds of groceries.

It was not just sight-seeing that motivated me to climb around Amalfi; I was also looking for an open wireless connection. Internet access has been a challenge, since most hotels don't have it & internet cafes can be sparse. So this has become our technique – wander around with our Skype phone, checking every 20 meters or so for a connection. When we find one, we note the location & hustle back with our laptops to download email. In Amalfi, it just happened to be overlooking a lovely little garden with a couple of dozing cats.

In the new-found sun, we scooted over to Pompeii. Pompeii, like Naples, was built along the Mediterranean coast in the shadow of Europe's only active volcano, Vesuvius. Pompeii, however, had the misfortune of being a thriving Roman city in 72 AD, when Vesuvius last erupted. Most of the citizens fled before the 30 feet of burning ash buried the city, but they left in a hurry, and when the city was rediscovered in the 1700s it was an archeologist's wet dream.

I've dreamed of visiting Pompeii for as long as I can remember, and it did not disappoint. The biggest surprise for me was that it is on a high point in the landscape, not in the big excavation pit I'd always imagined. It's enormous and hard to absorb. All the walls were made of stone, but the city suffered bombardment by pumice & burning ash, so not only were roofs burned off but upper stories and many whole walls were destroyed. The temples didn't survive very well either;often all that's left is a few columns and stairs. But the baker's ovens are intact, along with the huge stone mills used to grind grain. Store counters are ready for business, and the vats recessed below the counters – used to hold goods – just need to be swept out. Any possessions small enough to carry away are long gone, either looted or stowed in a museum, but it still looks surprisingly alive. Like all Roman roads, the stone-paved streets are deeply grooved from wagon wheels. Stray dogs roam the streets and pee on 2000-year-old mosaics. Spooky. [Downright creepy are the plaster casts that were made during the excavations of the molds left by bodies buried alive, including one of a dog writhing as he suffocates.]

[Note: the hotel that we stayed at – immediately adjacent to the ruins – was also pretty bizarre. The Hotel Ville dei Mistere was built in the late 60s and has a deliciously retro design; it looks like it belongs in Palm Springs. But it's also been stopped in time; they need permits for renovation that are not forthcoming, for reasons the hotel management doesn't understand. So parts are run-down, while others are mid-way through construction.]

From Pompeii we headed east across the ankle of Italy's “boot” to Bari & the Adriatic coast. Along the way we visited Matera, which in some ways was more like what I thought Pompeii would be like. The story is fascinating; since time immemorial, people had carved living space out of the soft white limestone along a deep ravine in this arid region. A proper city developed at the top of the ravine, but the poor continued to squat in this city of caves until they were forced out... in the 1950s! The area has been reclaimed, and is being repopulated as infrastructure (water, sewer, electric) is built. It's a lovely, sparkling white and mostly ghostly environment, halfway between abandonment and repopulation.

Bari was the departure point for the ferry that would take us to Croatia, but it also was home to an old friend of Andrea's who had also lived with the Yellen family for a while 30 years ago. Rino's a conductor and artistic director for the music scene in Bari; he was recently commissioned to create a musical honoring one of Puglia's musical heroes. He took us on a backstage tour of his theater, a glorious confection of late 1800s architecture that includes a wonderful plaster “curtain” that rings the ceiling. We even sat in the King's box – once occupied by Italian royalty! Rino treated us to an enormous fish dinner at his local eatery. Nothing was “ordered”; he just spoke at length with the owner and for three hours course after course of fresh, delicious seafood appeared! [Note to those following my increasing courage with seafood: I tried everything, including the most tender calamari, little fried fishes, and bottom dwellers with their eyes still in place.]

We decided to take the overnight ferry across the Aegean Sea to Dubrovnik (Croatia) because it was a 9-hour trip, with the potential to be very boring, and besides they had tiny little sleeping cabins to rent, and we were curious. The last time we'd been in a little cabinette was on the train from Oakland to Seattle, and that was great fun, especially seeing how efficiently they crammed a toilet, sink, 2 beds, a table, and closet into a space normally considered no bigger than a linen closet.

On the ferry, the space was as big as a spacious linen closet, and they added a shower and a footstool! Crafty Mediterraneans! Not exactly upscale, but it was a terrific nights sleep, rocking with the humming ship. And we woke up in Croatia!

Yes, Croatia was at war with the Serbs as recently as '95. And other parts of the former Yugoslavia were still fighting as recently as '99. Yes, there are signs of damage -- shrapnel holes in walls, abandoned stone homes with collapsed roofs, and mismatched stones in the sidewalks where they've had to match rock mined in the 21st century with that mined in the 6th (and blown apart in the 21st). And yes, most residents lived through the war, and there's a certain stiffness associated with that. We even saw a Serbian-registered car that had been completely trashed by the locals – the memories are pretty raw, apparently.

But before the war, even under Tito's communist rule as the former Yugoslavia, Croatia was the “Adriatic Riviera”, a tourist area renowned throughout Europe as beautiful, classy, and accommodating. It had been variously claimed by the Venetians, the Austrians, and the Ottomans because of its strategic value (maritime ports protected to the east by the mountains that hug the coast) and the awesome vacation possibilities. And holiday makers have been coming here since time began.

So Dubrovnik was our first stop. Tucked in at the southern end of Croatia, at the bottom of what's known as the Dalmatian Coast, this little walled city has charm galore. Like many of the seaside Old Towns (Stari Grad in Croatian), the walls built to protect the medieval city from raiders still stand, now protecting the tourists from cars. [Speaking of which, I saw one Yugo while in Yugoslavia. Looked like it was still running!]

Being (mostly) pedestrian-only magnifies the sounds of the city & seashore. Since the fishing industry that once sustained the economy has been supplanted by tourism, there aren't many seabirds, though a few gulls still make an appearance. Instead, the skies are dominated by pigeons & swallows (of all things). So we woke every morning to the laughing cries of gulls, as well as the cooing of pigeons and rubber-toy squeaks of swallows. [Note on attitudes toward pigeons: they are totally tolerated here, with no disgust. Our Italian friend Rino expressed disbelief that in most US cities pigeons are despised & considered “flying rats.” Which, as most of you can imagine, delighted me as I find pigeons beautiful & entertaining.]

Dubrovnik started as a steep-sided little island, joined at some point to the mainland by filling in a narrow channel. The city walls were built after that, so the whole thing resembles a bowl, with the walls following the edge, and the heart of the city in the basin (where the channel was.) The big treat is to walk the walls of the city, which provide a spectacular view of the city, the sea and the mountains on the mainland.

Other than strolling around, there's not much to do in these little towns. So, we spent a few days in Dubrovnik just soaking in the sun & ambiance, a program that we repeated with great success elsewhere. [Reading note: I happened to recently finish a book about Serbian fighters getting guns from a construction worker in Brooklyn, and brought with me another book of Thor's about Yugoslavia's dissolution written by a Croatian feminist in 1991. Reading about Communist deprivation while sitting in her country sipping a latte was pretty intense.]

All Croatians, it seems, speak English well enough, and understand it completely, so I didn't make the effort to even learn a few words (except for “decaf” which is “bez kofeina”). “Hello” is “bog”, which I do wish I'd learned just for the fun of saying it.

This language facility proved useful the day we left Dubrovnik, which should have been a leisurely drive up the coast to Split, where we would hop on a ferry to the island of Hvar. Instead, it became “The Car Day”. In the end, the problem turned out to be a $25 part. But of course it involved twice jumping the car (those lovely Croatians even understood that English phrase!), serendipitous intervention by the Croatian Automotive Club, serendipitous intervention of a busload of German tourists eager to push our car, and the unbelievable serendipity of the Mercedes' last gasp being in Gradac, within 1 km of the only Mercedes dealership in the entire region. They took charge, and we jumped on a bus to Split (which stopped – serendipitously – immediately outside the dealership), making the last ferry to Hvar.

The entire coastline of Croatia is lined by islands, not unlike our own barrier islands of the southeastern US coast, creating an inviting environment for recreational sailors. In fact, our friend Andrea & his family spend a couple weeks each summer meandering along the coast. Two subtle differences between here & the US: the Croatian islands are submerged limestone mountains – not flat sand ridges – and they number over 1000!

Hvar is one of the most scenic, not only for its natural beauty, but for the historic seaside port of Hvar Town. Like Dubrovnik, this former fishery has given over to tourism, but it still feels like a lived-in town, and close to its fishing roots. We treated ourselves to a stay in a true resort with an ultra-modern interior & a deluxe swimming pool complex (move over, Maui Weston!) We were just a ten-minute walk from the town center, along a broad cobbled seaside promenade which gradually revealed the harbor & town.

After a few leisurely days in Hvar Town (relax, soak up the sun, stroll around, drink a latte, and repeat), we retrieved the car from the dealer in Gradac & continued north. We elected to drive through the interior, rather than along the coast, and stumbled upon The Most Perfect Highway Ever. This highway is not on the maps, nor on our GPS unit. We speculated it was completed last week, or maybe the day before yesterday, and it seemed no one else had discovered it yet. Broad, clean, perfectly smooth, with grand vistas of mountains & valleys, & long open stretches that just begged for a spin at 100 miles per hour, it justified our use of the sporty Mercedes. And with a bright sunny day, the convertible as well. As a bonus, there were dozens of tunnels of varying lengths, including several over 6 km!

Our target was Rovinj, another seaside town on the Istrian peninsula at the north end of Croatia. The Istrian peninsula was under Italian rule as recently as WW II & the inhabitants are curiously comfortable with their mixed ancestry. Conversations routinely began & ended with “ciao.” Rovinj, like Dubrovnik, was originally an island, and joined to the mainland many centuries ago. Here, however, the fishing industry is still strong, and the port is so packed that it seems every resident must own a boat. Another clue to the city's close ties to the sea: many alley ways just end at the water!

The entire Croatian coast is rocky, which makes for wonderfully clear water but somewhat treacherous entry & exit. There are some beaches, but they're large pebbles, not sand, and really require footgear to navigate. (I tried with bare feet – bad idea.) In Dubrovnik & Hvar Town, locals just jumped off the rocks into what they knew (presumably) was an area free of jagged underwater hazards. But Rovinj had the most refined solution; they had built multi-level patios amongst the rocks using concrete & pavers – perfect for picnics & sunbathing. These patios were connected by wide, safe stairs, all of which cascaded down to the water's edge, where metal stairs (& handrails!) lead the swimmers to the safest swimming areas. It looked like something fake at a Hawaiian resort, but these were the areas open to all & frequented by locals. Splendid!

After a couple days of our standard ambiance-absorption, cobblestone-strolling, latte-sipping, etc. in Rovinj, we leave the Istrian peninsula and Croatia. As we enter Slovenia, it starts to rain & it suddenly feels like Austria, not the Mediterranean. And for good reason; Slovenia has always had close ties to its neighbor, both geographically & culturally. Though shoe-horned into the former Yugoslavia after WW II, it never fit in & was the first region to seek independence after Tito died.

We settle in at the Hudicevec “tourist farm” in southwestern Slovenia. [Translated, this means “the devil in disguise” and somehow we're not supposed to find that alarming.] I don't think we have “tourist farms” in the states, but we've stayed at them in the UK, Italy, and now Slovenia. At their most basic, they're bed & breakfasts, but on a working farm, with a spare bedroom or two, animals to feed, and home-grown food on the table. The more sophisticated ones – like this one in Slovenia – have many rooms, and a big enough dining room to accommodate tourist buses. The food is terrific traditional Slovenian fare, and we have some of our best meals since leaving Italy. Mmmm!

[An added bonus for me, recognizable to those who have read these travelogues before: they had donkeys on the farm! One mare had a spunky little foal, and another was in the last stages of pregnancy, if her barrel shape was any indication. She seemed happy just to stand still and get scratched & rubbed, a little pre-natal massage!]

From the farm, it was easy to take little day trips to the sites. Our first stop was the Lipizzaner stud farm. The horses have been bred here since the late 1500s, first for the Austrian court, and now for everyone (who has significant dough.) The horses don't start out their distinctive white; they are born black or brown, fade to gray, and then to white somewhere between 7 and 25 years of age. Of very even temperament, and easy to train, they make highly desirable dressage mounts. Given the emphasis put on their appearance, I found it curious that each horse is prominently branded: with an “L” on their left cheek, and their ID number on their left shoulder. You should be able to pick this out in the photo.

This region of Slovenia is the type location for karst geology, which means that the hills & valleys hold lots of caves & plenty of dolines (like sinkholes, where underground caves have collapsed). We checked out one old castle that is literally built into the mouth of a cave; this provided terrific defenses, especially since sieging Medieval would-be conquerors didn't know about the network of caves that let the residents slip in & out of the castle to get supplies. Heh!

But the caves themselves... oh, my. I've seen a few caves in the US and they're always cool [literally & figuratively], mysterious, magnificent, and fascinating. Hell, I'm a geologist, so what do you expect? We took in the Skocjan cave system where they have 2 sections open to touring. The “dry” or “silent” section is grand, with both large & small caverns filled with stalactites & stalagmites of all imaginable shapes & sizes; some very rare formations occur here. But the “wet” or “loud” section... it's one of the largest underground canyons in the world.

Imagine you are walking through a poorly-lit cavern. You notice that here, the stalactites twist and corkscrew as if frozen while buffeted by wind. Ahead, a mist starts to boil out of the passage way. You can hear a dull noise – constant & even -- like distant traffic. You round a corner & emerge at the top of an enormous canyon. More than 200 feet below you races a brilliant blue river, opaque with the suspension of tiny bits of rock eroding even now from the gorge. It sounds like a river canyon, it looks like a river canyon, but... you're underground! And the cavern roof is in the darkness more than 200 feet above you. You creep along the canyon walls, on trails that gradually descend, revealing waterfalls, eddies, and boulder-strewn rapids in the river. Eventually, you wander away from the water, through more rocky passage ways, and emerge into the sun at the base of an enormous collapse doline. At the bottom, you can see the Reka River winding its way toward a large, dark, hole, where it disappears into the canyon you just exited!

[Check out this website for a more complete but still entertaining description of the whole cave tour.]

After this, of course, it was hard to be impressed, but we took the train into the capital city of Ljubljama and, even in the rain, were quite taken with its beauty. The city symbol is a dragon, and the motif shows up everywhere, perhaps most impressively on the Dragon Bridge, which sports 4 full-sized (and we know this how?) statues. This centuries-old walled city was largely destroyed by earthquake in the late 1800s, and the architecture is a beguiling mix of Baroque, Art Deco, and Communist work, with a few really old stone houses left in for added diversity. All the buildings were confiscated under Communism, but the city is in the process of trying to track down & return the properties to the original owners. No small task, since many residents fled to Australia & passed away. Buildings that have been reclaimed & restored stand next to forlorn decrepit ones still awaiting their new, old owners.

[Note for Harry Potter fans: between the mysterious cave, the old Ljubljama train with cabinettes, the rugged forested landscape, and the dragons, I was having trouble distinguishing reality from fiction – since I was listening to Book 7 on audio tape!]

Having run out of time, we left “our” Slovenian farm & moseyed on back to Italy. Because Slovenia is part of the EU, the border with Italy is completely open, like traveling from New York to New Jersey. And everything’s cheaper in Slovenia (as it is in NJ), so people walk from Italy to the grocery, hardware, and sundries shops located immediately across the border. You have to slow down not for a passport inspection but to avoid hitting all the pedestrians.

The day started out sunny & bright, giving us only the 4th chance to drive the Mercedes with the convertible top down. When we approached Andrea & Grazia's, however, it started to rain again; apparently, this part of Italy hasn't seen crappy wet weather like this for 20 years.

Just to make sure it felt like we’d visited Europe, we spent a lovely day in Venice, then a couple days in London on our way home. So let's take a moment & ponder some of the mysteries of European culture. These are things Howard & I just don't understand, despite the fact we've seen them time & again.

There's a complaint book in every restaurant, and each menu has it clearly identified. “The complaint book may be found at the front counter.” Fine. Courteous touch. But you want a chilled beverage? Well, forget it. You never get ice served with your beverages. You get a glass, and a bottle of Coke, and that's it. And napkins? No need on the Continent for the little signs you see in Peet’s, “Napkins come from trees – please take only what you need.” Wait staff are so stingy you have to beg. And the product they dole out can hardly be considered a napkin. One wipe of a wet mouth & it’s history.

And those Europeans are so safety conscious, there’s an emergency pull-cord in every hotel bathroom. I guess the slip-trip hazard is pretty high in European WCs, and you don’t want to take the chance you won’t make it to the phone. But you have to lock your hotel room from the inside with a key, which, in case of a fire, has got to be the most dangerous thing in the world. Sirens going off, and you’re trying to find a key – in the dark – and then insert it into an unfamiliar lock? What's up with that?

They’ve got the leg up on us in bathrooms though, with those fancy bidets that Americans just can’t figure out, and which will be shoehorned into the tiniest European bathroom. But we’ve got showers figured out. Can’t do without a butt-washer, but apparently shower doors & curtains are optional in Europe. I can’t tell you how many times we encountered bathtubs with a shower head and no curtain or door. Or a shower (which tend toward the comically miniscule in size) with one side completely open. Or no lip at the base so that all the water just drained over the bathroom floor. [There’s always a drain in the bathroom floor, which makes mopping up easy after you’ve showered all over it.]

It’s these little idiosyncrasies that keep us coming back for more!