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Bennett & Tom's Excellent Adventure
 | Bennett & Tom's Excellent Adventure An irreverent tale of honeymooning and shoe-shopping in Italy
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by Bennett Law
Yes, yes, for our honeymoon Tom and I really flew to Rome to buy shoes. Tom wanted badly to go Milan (his idea of the birthplace of civilization), but I insisted, “Honey, they sell those shoes in Rome.”
But it turned out that Italy is a country of bowlers.
At least, that’s what their preferred choice in footwear suggests. The Italians have made bowling shoes a fashion statement. Red leather shoes with stitching up the top, from the tip of the toe to the laces. Everyone – and I mean everyone – wears them, from grandmothers to school children to the hot – scorching hot! – young guys. They all share a common, warped sense of bowling attire as fashion.
Two gay guys flew to Italy and didn’t bring home any shoes. Sad, but true!
Rome: An Annunciation Too Far
We loved Rome, even though much of it is, ahem, ‘ruined’ (joke). The Pantheon is an elegant structure, with a rotunda of 5 concentric circles, each composed of sets of 5 concentric squares. If only one building was destined to endure the millennia intact, this may have been the perfect choice. It alone was worth the trip. The Coliseum, the Roman Baths, the Fountain of Trevi – each was a magnificent bonus.
At the Vatican Museum you are shepherded through about 200 rooms on the way to the Sistine Chapel. Every square inch of the place is covered with paintings of cherubs and the crucifixion and the like. One room, painted by Raphael, was purportedly used as a study by Pope Leo, but after about five minutes in that space anyone, Pope or not, would have a killer headache. I’m sure this is just blasphemous, but even in the Sistine Chapel I couldn’t help thinking that the whole place could really use a fresh coat of paint. Something a tad more Protestant – think Shaker – might be an improvement.
They honestly had signs up in some cathedrals apologizing for how changes in public taste during the Restoration had led city magistrates and church officials to order the whitewashing of frescoes. Yes, some few of the 2,567,431 paintings of The Annunciation will never be seen again: oh, the losses! They seemed ashamed that the cathedral might be appreciated simply for its architecture and the remaining art treasures that line the walls and rooms. The most stunning of the cathedrals we visited was the Santa Croce in Florence, where the whitewashed walls and ceilings allowed for an uncluttered appreciation of the magnificence of the structure itself. The architecture was the art.
I had to regard many of the paintings we viewed simply as historical artifacts. Remarks like “the sophomores in art class at Whitcomb High School could do this” were not welcomed. When in Rome, I learned, do not suggest any lack of appreciation for old things. And as a man newly united to someone younger, I’m permanently invested in fostering an active appreciation for older things. Think of me as Italian art.
Florence: Bad Timing, Great David
The timing of our visit to Florence was unfortunate. We had originally planned to arrive on Friday and leave Monday, but we imagined that many of the sites might be closed on Sunday. So we changed our plans to arrive on Saturday and leave on Tuesday. Turns out that most things are closed on Sunday and Monday. Oops.
So we had to choose quickly between seeing Michelangelo’s statue of David (at the Gallery of the Academy of Art) and Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” at the Uffizi Gallery. Hmm – naked girl or naked guy?
The David has to be the single most perfectly presented piece of art on the planet. You walk down a corridor that has two unfinished Michelangelos on each side, and at the end of the corridor, standing under its own rotunda, which provides the only lighting for the piece, stands the David. You’ve worn the t-shirt, you have the magnet on your refrigerator, but the statue is truly transcendent. An entire world of possibility for expression through stone is captured in this one masterpiece.
When we stepped out of our hotel in Florence on the morning we were to drive to Ravello, we were greeted by a marching band, decked out in uniforms and accompanied by dancing girls with batons. It was like stepping into the half-time show at the Texas Tech vs. Baylor football game.
We quickly went from being entertained to concerned, however, when we discovered that this band was just the beginning of a march that stretched for miles and miles. The left had called a General Strike to protest recent decisions of the right-leaning government, and they were taking this strike business at least semi-seriously. All public transportation was shut down, and an army of chanting Italians waving Communist flags completely clogged the streets – literally for miles (no half-hearted little demonstrations for these folks!). To get to our car rental agency, we had to walk against the crowd, carrying everything we owned.
We were lucky to find the uber-right wing Helga, who had no time for the petty dissatisfactions of the working class, stationed resolutely behind the Hertz counter. And what a welcome sight! If not for Helga we might be scavenging with the rats under a bridge along the Arno.
The Amalfi Coast: Steps & Horses
Driving in Italy is like driving in major US cities – a kind of every man for himself mentality prevails – except they do it faster. And each lane of the autostrade has its own posted speed limit: fast, faster, and fastest. We were tooling along at 150 km/hour, and folks were passing us like we were standing still. And you have to realize that this is all in tiny little European cars – the monsters that we drive in America simply will not fit on the streets of these ancient cities.
Ravello is splendid – gorgeously situated 1,000 feet above the Mediterranean. This became our favorite part of the trip. Everything is straight up and down, making the driving a feat of geometry and physics, not to mention a serious test of your nerves. Our car even got hit by a police car, and the driver didn’t stop! Besides having the mirror whacked off the driver’s side by a cruiser, I also sideswiped a stone wall during my drive along the sidewalk and up a flight of stairs to get the car into the hotel lot, and the rental return guy didn’t even blink. It turns out that if you bring the car back, apparently regardless of its condition, the rental agency is grateful and everybody’s happy.
So to avoid the stresses of driving along the Amalfi Coast, most people opt for the stairs. There were 1,415 stairs from our hotel in Ravello to the sea. Straight down. Perhaps the most fun Tom and I had in Italy was climbing back up the stairs, from Amalfi to places unknown. We climbed beyond where mere mortal tourists ascend, up to where we encountered more donkeys and horses on the steps than people. Some guy was apparently building a house high in the hills by carting construction supplies up the stairs on a flotilla of horsebacks.
We were actually chased by these horses up the stairs (there’s no chance to catch your breath when a pack of horses are quick on your heels!) to a landing from which the stairs branched out in three different directions. I tried my best to discern which direction the, uh, “cowboy” was leading these horses, but once we had committed to what seemed like the safest route, damned if those horses weren’t instantly on our heels again. Tom was unable to continue the climb, as he was doubled over in hysterics: he swore I looked like Jerry Lewis running for my life from these horses.
Catholic Relics: Nothing to Die For
The Catholics seem to really revere dead things. Tom, whom I caught dipping his fingers into the holy water and crossing himself (I married a believer!), dragged me into the basement of St. Peter’s Basilica to see the dead Popes. I kid you not: the basement is full of dead bodies, all mummified, with tourists from around the world snapping photos to show the folks back home.
In St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Amalfi we got to see St. Andrew’s body, but his head is at the Vatican. We saw the bones of this saint, the chains that held another, a scrap of clothing, a tooth here and there – fragments all, as if in some frenzy priests divvied up the dead bodies and everyone got a bone chip, a toenail, or some chest hair.
Most gruesome of all was the blood of St. Somebody-or-other (honestly, with all these saints you’d think the world would be a better place), which they proudly display in the cathedral in Ravello. Legend has it that in July of every year the blood begins to boil and refreshes itself (from thick, coagulated sludge to the ruby color of a fresh kill), but no one could recall this happening in their lifetimes. I thought I might vomit. Is that what these relics are for – to test the stomachs of the faithful?
One can only imagine the feeding frenzy over The Cross. We saw splinters of The Cross literally all over the place. I began to think we’d seen enough splinters to reconstruct a split rail fence from P-Town to San Francisco. How huge was that thing? And just who carried it – Christ or Goliath?
On our return to Rome for the flight home, we were left with a final afternoon during which to pursue additional Catholic Relics. And we hit the motherlode! Tom dragged me to the Cathedral Santa Maria Maggiore in the rain. I was sick (the wrong pesce?), and opted to sit in a pew on the side aisle, determined to hold it together, with a promise that I would get up if there was something I simply had to see.
After scouting the place, Tom returned and offered, “They’ve got The Crib of Christ here.” Well, this seemed worth an effort, so I walked across the room – maneuvering through a nun convention – to get a good look and prepared myself to be amazed.
I stumbled my nauseated way back to the pew where I had left Tom, sat down, and calmly reported, “I read that book, honey, and at no time did it suggest that Christ slept in a chafing dish.” He had sent me to see a baroque chafing dish (I would not have been surprised to see little sterno cans set out beneath it, keeping the ‘crib’ cozy), completely covered in silver and gold angels and cherubs and the like. It was intensely ornate – way, way over the top (a.k.a. “Italianate”). As if Joseph was Harvey Fierstein and he ran a catering company.
Tom, who is nothing if not patient, explained to me that there were little windows in the sides of this “chafing dish” through which I could see the twigs purported to be of The Crib of Christ. So once again I hauled my pathetic ass down the stairs, elbowing those determined little nuns out of my way, and sure enough there was something dark inside the small frosted panes on the sides of the chafing dish. The Crib of Christ, I’m sure.
Final Thoughts (Because They’ll Never Let Me Cross the Borders Again!)
My take on Italians: the women are loud. The men are gorgeous. Not appealing in any kind of remote or subtle way, but truly gorgeous in that “I can see I’m making you sweat – will that be all, sir?” kind of way. What you would really call “service with a smile.”
Many Italians do not have phones in their homes. Instead they make do with cell phones. As soon as we got on the train from Rome to Florence, everyone dialed up their cell phones. We were essentially trapped in a Verizon commercial, with a train full of Italians querying, “Can you hear me now?” It was unrelenting.
They only seem to have Italian food in Italy. Breakfasts in the hotels were advertised as “British,” which means lots of jams and sausage. But beyond that, everything was pasta and pesce. I love pasta, and I love fish. But by the end of two weeks I wanted a hamburger more than anything. Don’t the Italians ever eat Chinese?
And finally, do yourself a favor and invest in a decent camera. I took 12 rolls of film on a $20 camera with a plastic lens, and it shows. The guy at the photo shop had tears in his eyes when he handed them over (and I teared up when I had to pay for these murky shots). If you’re going to go to the trouble to haul a camera around Europe, lug one with at least the potential to capture worthwhile shots!
By all means, go. Tom and I took advantage of a traditional honeymoon to take a trip that we had both found reasons to put off for years. We had such a spectacular time that we spent the flight home plotting future trips to Spain, Britain, and Greece. They sell shoes in Spain, right?
Bennett Law lusts after “old fashioned” Italian shoes in Bethel.