Youngs Around the World

From Rome to Venice, with many great stops in between, we are joined with my beautiful sister, Natalie. Aaron and I arrived in Rome on the midmorning train from Naples and Natty’s flight landed in the early afternoon. She fared the jetlag splendidly and the three of us set out on a walk in search of food and drink. We found the Colosseum instead. We turned the corner and there it was – Rome’s most recognizable monument. Naturally, we gravitated toward it with scenes of gladiatorial combat racing through our minds. We decided not to go inside it just yet but rather sat at one of the outdoor cafes beside it and toasted a celebratory round of overpriced beers. It was a great start to our Italian adventures.

The next morning began with a bit of business – our second attempt at obtaining Russian visas. We were denied once already in Barcelona and I was pessimistic about our chances this time and perturbed that we were wasting our first precious morning hours in Rome on the stupid Russians. Natty was a great sport throughout her little taste of the Amazing Race and, by lunchtime, we were headed to the Vatican.

I have always dreamed of seeing the Sistine Chapel. If you’d asked me before this trip to name the ten things that I most wanted to see, Michelangelo’s famous ceiling would have been high on the list. As we walked briskly from the Ottaviano metro stop, through forays of young students hoping to sell us an English tour, I could hardly contain my excitement. Memories of The Agony and the Ecstasy, The Da Vinci Code, and of an inspiring humanities class from my sophomore year at Arizona vied for position in the foreground of my mind. I had read about the Vatican’s vast treasury of priceless works of art but I was not mentally prepared for a collection that rivals the Louvre. My jaw dropped to the floor and I dragged it along for the next three hours.

Inside the Pinacoteca, paintings by Raphael, Caravaggio and Da Vinci among others graced the walls. Other galleries contained hundreds of marble busts and statues, enormous tapestries, Etruscan artifacts, and stunning iconography. The Map Gallery was a long hall containing world maps painted in foregone centuries, enlightening the viewer as to the perception of the world long before satellites and Columbus. The private apartments of Pope Julius II were, like the whole of the Vatican Museum, remarkably opulent; every wall, ceiling, and corner of the various salons were richly decorated with religious frescoes, framed paintings, decadent mouldings, and magnificent sculptures. The experience was mindboggling and we hadn’t even made it to the Sistine Chapel yet!

The museum tour is organized such that the Sistine Chapel is the last thing you see for you cannot re-enter the other galleries from there. It is an impressively efficient system of herding the thousands of daily visitors through the various corridors and galleries. It also builds overwhelming suspense in the viewers’ mind, which the climax of the visit – the Sistine Chapel – answers with vigor.

After hours of wandering the seemingly endless galleries, you are a little weary; your senses are overloaded and you’re not sure if you’re mentally ready for the climax…and then you step inside a large rectangular room full of people, their necks craned as if they are gazing into the Heavens. And then you look up.

No matter what you have previously read or heard or thought, the Sistine Chapel can bring tears to your eyes. Though Michelangelo always considered himself a sculptor and only begrudgingly accepted the papal commission for the ceiling, he poured himself into the work. Declining any assistance, he spent four years (1508-1512) lying on scaffolding, creating what would become one of the world’s most glorious and famous masterpieces.

The ceiling is divided into several sections with nine scenes from the book of Genesis depicted through the center, including the most recognized Creation of Adam. Despite the jostling crowd, every spot is a good one and, when your neck starts to ache from looking up, your gaze can comfortably rest on Michelangelo’s other great work, The Last Judgment, painted on the alter wall almost twenty years after the ceiling was completed. Many believe it to be superior to even his own ceiling frescoes. I was so moved by both works that I found it impossible to compare them. Michelangelo was clearly a conductor of God’s own hand.

While the security personnel tirelessly hushed the crowd to preserve the sanctity of the atmosphere, the shoulder-to-shoulder crush still detracted from the experience. I wondered if the Pope ever comes in at night, when the doors are locked and he has the place to himself, and lies on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling in solitude. I certainly would.

After the Sistine Chapel – and at this point I was naturally thinking, What could possibly follow the Sistine Chapel that would not pale in comparison? – we followed the Vatican walls around to St. Peter’s Square. Designed by Bernini in the 17th century, the roundish piazza was conceived as a place for Christians to gather. Today, it serves as an outdoor foyer to St. Peter’s Basilica. After the Crucifixion of Christ, St. Peter came to pagan Rome to spread Christianity. At that time, Christians were being persecuted by the anti-Christian emperor Nero and Peter fled from Rome. On his way out of town, he had a vision of Christ carrying a cross toward Rome. When Peter asked Christ what he was doing, Christ told Peter that he was going to Rome to be crucified again. Peter returned to Rome and was immediately imprisoned. He was crucified upside down. The original basilica was built by Rome’s first Christian emperor, Constantine, in the 4th century on the site where St. Peter was martyred. In the years since, the basilica has been touched by the artistic hands of Bramante, Bernini, and Michelangelo among others.

The white marble façade of the world’s second largest basilica, decorated with Roman columns and topped with sculptures, is striking but is a vast understatement in comparison to the majestic grandeur of the interior. Among the magnificent marble sculptures on display is Michelangelo’s Pieta. Bathed in soft light, the work exemplifies the artist’s ability to capture movement with the musculature of Christ’s lifeless body and the flowing folds of the Madonna’s robes. Lifelike marble statues by Bernini also decorate the cavernous interior. In the center of the basilica stands the high altar with a magnificent bronze work by Bernini, which stands above St. Peter’s crypt. Above the high altar, Michelangelo’s dome filters daylight through a line of windows below a kaleidoscope of iconography.

As we toured the basilica a service was taking place. The musical voice of a young priest filled the interior with a soft Latin chant. As I walked, awestruck by the beautiful works of art and warmed by the music, my thoughts drifted to my grandparents. All four of them were so humbly pious and, in my adult years, I have drawn much inspiration from their example. In particular, I thought of my sweet Yiayia who would have wept in the presence of such beautiful glory had she ever had the pleasure of seeing it. Thoughts of her filled my heart and, convinced that I was seeing all of this through her eyes, the tears began to fall. In my heart, I dedicate this day to my sweet angel, Bessie Mihal – Daughter of Penelope, lover of pink roses, spoiler of grandchildren, angel of God – who is and will always be with me.

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The fast ferry delivered us from Amalfi to Naples in just over two hours. The ride was pleasant and the view from the sun deck spectacular. As we neared the Naples port, we could see the mischievous Mount Vesuvius looming in the background. Having spent as much of the day as possible in Atrani, we arrived in Naples in the early evening. Naples is the city responsible for introducing pizza to the world and Aaron was licking his cheeky chops long before our arrival. Before disembarking the ferry, he had already decided on Pizzeria Da Michele – Naples’ most famous pizza joint – as our dinner venue. While I am generally in charge of the family nutrition, Italy is pizza country and Naples in pizza town. We had to indulge. The hand-tossed thin crust pies were to die for, layered with double mozzarella and the freshest ingredients.

The next day was devoted to Pompeii and, despite the incessant drunken racket of the obnoxious twentysomethings that kept us up half the night, we woke early to beat the crowds and the sweltering heat. We were among the first inside and, with our audio guides and our very stylish hats, we began to explore.

Pompeii, a Roman city that had been in existence for centuries, began to flourish in the 2nd century BC. In AD 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted, covering Pompeii in several meters of toxic volcanic ash. The ancient city remained buried beneath the ash for centuries until traces of it were discovered and excavation began in the 1700s. As fate would have it, the cocoon of ash actually preserved the structures and many of their original frescoes and, after hundreds of years of excavation, most of the remnants have re-emerged.

What is shocking about the ruins of Pompeii is the sheer size of the city and its level of development. The stone streets are arranged in a grid system. The city has government buildings, temples, two theatres, a stadium, a market, bakery, public baths, public swimming pool and athletic field, storehouse and hundreds of individual houses, some with elaborate floor plans. Many of the buildings have beautiful painted frescoes, stone and marble columns and mosaic tile floors that remain quite well intact after almost two thousand years. The most affluent homes have garden courtyards, which were the style of the time, and the gardens have been replanted to look as they probably did before the eruption. Walking through the old stone streets, peering into the ruins of two thousand year old homes, you really get a sense of what life in Pompeii must have been like. You can easily imagine the streets full of activity: children playing, women cooking and sewing, men discussing business or politics on the lawn, young men competing at sport.

One of the most interesting buildings to walk through was the brothel. It had several tiny rooms, each with a stone bed where the prostitutes would service their clients. Only slaves and middle class citizens patronized the brothel. Wealthy clients received working women in their homes. Above the tiny brothel rooms, interesting frescoes depicting various erotic positions are visible. Etched into the brothel walls are names of some of the most beautiful prostitutes as well as client names and complaints about venereal disease.

The most fascinating things that we saw among the Pompeii ruins were the bodies. As the volcanic ash began to fall from the sky, many people suffocated and were buried in the meters of ash. When they died, their bodies became petrified in their final agonizing positions. When the bodies decayed, their petrified shapes remained. They were an eerie sight. There was even one body of a dog that had been chained inside its house, its contorted death pose petrified for eternity.

We’ve seen a lot of ruins on this trip, but Pompeii is unique in its level of preservation, the modernity of the city plan and buildings, and the fascinating tale of its destruction. Pompeii reminds us of how small we are in the scheme of our world and in relation to the passage of time and also how quickly we can disappear from this earth if it is the will of God. The thriving, bustling, affluent city disappeared beneath layers of ash for 1,500 years – an entire city gone in a matter of a day.

Touring the ruins was a hot, dusty, exhausting experience and also a rewarding one. We finished off the excursion with frozen lemon- and orange-ades, made from fresh-squeezed juice, and gigantic salads with the ripest, reddest tomatoes and the freshest buffalo mozzarella. We had spent about three hours in the ruins and, on the bus ride back to Naples, we sat in near silence. Pompeii left us with much to ponder.

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Picture this: a pretty little piazza among whitewashed buildings with green accents, ivy and flower boxes. There is an outdoor café in the piazza filled with the quiet chatter of locals. Laundry dangles from upper story balconies against paint-chipped walls, giving the square a lived-in feel. Suntanned Italian children play around an old stone fountain and bounce balls which occasionally land on the café tables making everyone laugh softly before returning to their conversations. The air is perfect. The dim streetlamp gives off a soft yellow light, illuminating the glass of crisp white wine in your hand.

Our ten-hour stretch of travel between Barcelona and Amalfi was exhausting, involving six separate legs of transport and a half-kilometer uphill hike with our bags in tow. Our hostelkeeper, Felipo, greeted us warmly when we finally arrived, exhausted. You could play an accordion to the sound of his gentle, happy voice. He explained that each morning would begin with “a beautiful breakfast”. There was free access to the beach and everything we needed was in the piazza. After our long day of travel, we wearily stumbled out into the moonlit square; the chaos of the day melted away and we slipped into paradise.

The Amalfi Coast is as stunning as it sounds. The coast itself is a Unesco World Heritage site composed of whitewashed towns built into sheer cliffs on the perfect blue Mediterranean. Small strips of black volcanic sand, peppered with smooth pebbles and beach glass, dotted with striped beach umbrellas line the coast and, on any given day, there are as many locals swimming as tourists. The waves are gentle and the coast sits at such an angle that the sun lights up the cliffside towns both morning and afternoon.

We came to the Amalfi Coast to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary and, upon our arrival, we realized that it was the perfect place with nothing to do but eat and drink, shop, swim and soak up the beauty of our surroundings. We were staying in Atrani, just a ten minute walk along the beach from Amalfi. Our little piazza was the heart of Atrani. Felipo said that it was paradise and he was right. We fell in love with it that first evening.

Our breakfast the next morning, served graciously by Felipo’s brother, was indeed beautiful. Our cappuccinos even had cocoa-powder smiley faces sprinkled into the froth. It was a lovely start to our anniversary. After breakfast, we walked to the port in Amalfi and caught the bus to Positano – the coast’s most picturesque and expensive town. The coastal towns are connected by a narrow winding road with hairpin turns, which the fearless young drivers navigate with gusto. Around every bend is a new breathtaking view and sparkling blue water for as far as the eye can see.

Positano stretches around a crescent moon-shaped bay with each end elevated on a cliff side, which makes for excellent photography. The pretty building facades, painted white, yellow and terra cotta, light up beautifully against the steely cliff. The bus from Amalfi stops at one end and by the time you make it down the hill and into town, you have used up half your camera battery and are brimming with excitement. We began by wandering through the tangle of whitewashed alleys with colorful shops around every corner. By mid-morning it was already hot and we treated ourselves to some terribly stylish hats and a few other treasures, letting ourselves pretend to be two-week vacationers just for a day. We sat for lunch at one of the beachside cafes and shared a pizza and, after a bit more wide-eyed wandering, headed back to Atrani. Both Positano and Amalfi have pretty beaches but we were drawn to our own beach at Atrani, mostly because it was close to our piazza.

The water looked so inviting that we could barely bring ourselves to spread our beach mats before wading in. The waves were gentle and the water perfectly cool. It was absolute Heaven! As I stretched out and floated on my back, gazing up at the beautiful little town, I enviously reflected that the locals here get to do this every day. I wondered what it would be like to live out the rest of my days in paradise.

With all of the wonderfully decadent and expensive restaurants in Amalfi and Positano to choose from – I could get away with anything on my anniversary – it’s no surprise that I chose the restaurant in our piazza for dinner. We shared a bottle of wine, the freshest mozzarella I’ve ever tasted, and a dish of fresh pasta in a place that felt like a home we might have known in another life. The evening concluded with heaping cones of gelato which we happily moved from lips to hips on a bench overlooking the sea.

The Amalfi Coast was the perfect place to spend our anniversary because its many delicious similarities to Santorini – the whitewashed buildings, black sand beaches, and pristine blue waters of the Mediterranean – recalled wonderful memories of our honeymoon. We recounted the many blessings in our lives and the happy dream that has been this year traveling the world. Highlights from our great adventures flash through my mind as I sit in our piazza staring out at the ocean and I am tickled by the blooms of our rather unconventional decision just over a year ago. At this moment, in this beautiful place, my heart is full of happiness and I suddenly realize that the pain and hardships that we must endure in our lives make the joyous moments so much sweeter. I realize that, today, I finally feel whole again, my once-faltering faith restored after our recent loss.

We spent our last day exploring Amalfi and now lounging in our piazza while the Mediterranean beckons us for one last swim in its Heavenly, healing waters. I think we shall be persuaded.

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Salvador Dali (1904-89), born in the small Spanish town of Figueres just a few kilometers south of the French border, is regarded by many to be one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century. He is also one of our personal favorites. In the 1960’s and 70’s, Dali created the Teatre-Museu Dali in Figueres, a culmination of his life’s work and the single greatest surrealist piece of art in the world. We decided to use our last day in Spain to make the pilgrimage, a two-hour train ride north from Barcelona.

The Figueres’ former municipal theater, burned and destroyed during the Spanish civil war, was personally converted by Dali to create the museum. A brochure that we picked up at the museum entrance suggested that “the Dali Theatre-Museum should be seen as a whole, for Dali conceived and designed everything in it with the aim of offering the visitor a veritable aesthetic experience, and the opportunity of entering the artist’s unique, fascinating world.” And what an amazing world it was, filled with Dali’s psychedelic and spectral images! Tina is unshakably convinced that there must have been some fantastic hallucinogens in Gaudi and Dali’s time. After two hours of wandering around the multilevel amphitheatre we were both overwhelmed by the artist’s unique and varied creations – paintings, drawings, sculptures, gold, jewels, and installations. Dali was certainly not confined to the medium of painting for which he is most famous. He liked to paint his wife, Gala. He liked to create things that move. Filled with cartoon-like sketches, enormous wall-covering paintings, surrealistic oil paintings, doorways morphed into giant faces, and a chaotic array of sculptures and installations, the museum left us speechless. It was easily one of our favorite museums in the world.

Our tickets granted us entry to another of Dali’s museums nearby, the Dali Joies (Dali Jewels). In the 1940’s, Dali was commissioned to design a collection of jewelry. The result was an eclectic display of beautiful bejeweled anthropomorphic creations including The Eye of Time, an eye-shaped mosaic of platinum, ruby and diamonds and The Royal Heart, a solid gold heart with an inset ruby-encrusted, mechanized heart that appeared to beat. Dali summarizes his collection best. “The jeweled pieces – ornaments, medals, crosses, objets d’art – you find are not conceived to rest soullessly in steel vaults. They were created to please the eye, uplift the spirit, stir the imagination, express convictions. Without an audience, without the presence of spectators, these jewels would not fulfill the function for which they came into being. The viewer, then, is the ultimate artist. His sight, heart, mind – fusing with and grasping with greater or lesser understanding the intent of the creator – gives them life.”

A short train ride south from Figueres is the picturesque town of Girona, idyllically perched on a riverbank with colorfully-painted houses and a rustic medieval town center. We stopped there on our way back to Barcelona and sat for a late lunch at one of the outdoor cafés. We wandered through the narrow winding streets, visiting the town’s cathedral, stopping for photos and gelato. Girona is not a major tourist destination, overflowing with historical sights, but rather a charming little town straddling a lazy river. We found its tranquil streets a refreshing change from the frenetic pace of Barcelona and the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds at the Dali museum.

And so our days in Spain have come to an end. We have truly enjoyed the sangria, the paella and gelato; the vibrant colors, the music and the laid back attitudes of the Spanish people. Life in Spain seems refreshingly immune to the frenetic pace of much of the Western world. Barcelona, jewel of the Mediterranean, is a conglomeration of Spain’s best attributes – stunning architecture, a relaxed café culture, world class museums, historic medieval neighborhoods, and one of the most enjoyable beaches we’ve ever experienced. Lladro. Picasso. Dali. Gaudi. Spain makes the world beautiful.

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Never again will we underestimate the contributions of the Spanish to the overall beauty of the world…and I’m not just talking about the dark hair, Mediterranean skin and heaving cleavage. We have waded into the Barcelona art scene, a playground of Picasso and Modernista architect, Antoni Gaudi. With six nights to play, we felt sure that we could visit Barcelona’s most impressive sights with plenty of time leftover for sangria and the beach. We were mostly right.

We arrived in the late afternoon and went directly to La Rambla, a beautiful tree-lined pedestrian walkway lined with cafés and restaurants. Barcelona’s most famous street was thronged with locals and tourists alike, strolling the lane and absorbing the vibrant activity. Interspersed with the fresh flower stalls, souvenir stands, small pet shops and street artists, costumed street performers drew the biggest crowds. Nowhere have we seen more elaborate costumes outside a theatre than we have on La Rambla. The street was full of life and we would stroll it nearly every day during our stay.

The next day, we began by walking through the tangled medieval stone alleys of Barri Gotic, Barcelona’s Gothic quarter, walking through its magnificent Gothic cathedral and then, the highlight of our day – the Picasso Museum. Barcelona’s most visited museum is housed in five medieval stone mansions. The corridors are dim and cavernous while the galleries are bright and airy to showcase the work. The museum exhibits Picasso’s earliest works, including oil paintings on postcard-size pieces of wood, sketches, sculptures, many works from his famous Blue Period and a tireless study of Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez. The museum was fascinating because it displayed many works from Picasso’s earlier, more traditional style of painting and followed his transition to the Cubism for which he is most famous.

The artist who has left by far the most stunning and visible fingerprint on Barcelona is Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926). He was a pioneering architect of the Modernista period in Spain, during which innovative artists showcased bold, modern designs in architecture as symbols of the rising affluence of the Spanish bourgeois.

We devoted an entire day to admiring Gaudi’s brilliant work, beginning with a visit to Park Guell. The project began in 1900, on a piece of prime real estate overlooking the sea, as a housing development for the wealthy but ended fourteen years later as a commercial failure. The city later purchased the incomplete development and turned it into a public park. From the metro stop, a series of escalators carried excitable tourists up the side of a steep hill. Once inside the park, landscaped gravel walking trails wound around the hillside overlooking the Mediterranean. The trails eventually led to the remnants of Gaudi’s creations for the original housing development project: two “gingerbread” gatehouses, a colorful, curvy plaza and 3km of roads, walks and steps. The park was a beautiful place for a picnic and many people had copped a squat in the pillared pavilion at the entry while musicians played for tips. The plaza was a large open area surrounded by a squiggly mosaic bench and it was there that I really began to visualize the potential of the original project. It would have been like living in a fun house with pretty touches everywhere to make people smile. That was Gaudi’s way.

After the park, we moved on to another one of Gaudi’s creations – La Pedrera – an apartment building commissioned by a well-to-do couple. “La Pedrera”, meaning stone quarry, was a nickname given to the building because it looks like it is carved out of stone. The completed building consists of two blocks of apartments, each with its own interior courtyard, and with one continuous façade that curves around a corner lot. An apartment on the fourth floor was decorated as it would have been in the early 1900’s, when it was inhabited by the Barcelona bourgeois. The floor plan encircled a large interior courtyard, filling the apartment with light. From the swirling ceilings and parquet floors to the moulding, door knobs and other ornamental embellishments, every detail of the interior has Gaudi’s personal touch.

Just a few blocks down the road, Casa Batllo was my favorite Gaudi masterpiece. It was a remodel of an existing house, commissioned by the Batllo family, and created by Gaudi with an “under the sea” theme. The façade is a vision of waves in blue, mauve and green tile, leading up to an uneven blue-tiled roof. Inside, everything waves and swirls – hardly a single straight line can be found – and the rooms are full of color and light. The rooftop terrace, which overlooks pretty Passeig de Gracia, is a surprising delight with mosaic chimney sculptures, multiple levels, and a small cavernous room with a water feature that makes an echoing sound of rain. Every aspect of Casa Batllo is beautiful and functional and brilliant. It is a dream house!

Exhausted but still trudging along, we made our way to Gaudi’s most famous creation and Barcelona’s most famous work-in-progress: La Sagrada Familia. Begun in 1882, the church was the project to which Gaudi dedicated the latter part of his life and was left incomplete when Gaudi died in 1926. It is an awe-inspiring synergy of a traditional Gothic design and Gaudi’s shocking Modernista flair. Stunning sculptured façades seem to jump off the church and the narrow pointed towers are breathtaking to behold. La Sagrada Familia looks more like a fairy tale castle than a church. Work continues slowly, according to Gaudi’s original designs. The completed structure will be a glorious monument to an artist who left an unforgettable mark on Barcelona. The photos simply do not do it justice. It is a church unlike any the world has ever seen.

Antoni Gaudi has been the highlight of our visit to Barcelona. His masterworks light up the city. They make people point and smile. He was unconventional and inventive. His sense of humor and zest for life are manifest in the many works he has left for the world to enjoy.

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