At 9 AM we met at the front gate for a walking tour to and around the Vatican led by a few of the Rome Fellows at the AAR. Our first professor gave us a quick summary of the various battles that had been fought behind and on Academy ground. Surprisingly, there were a few — and it seems so peaceful now. As we walked he gave a brief history of the unification of Rome including enthralling tidbits about Pope Pius IX, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II. He showed us the huge statue of Garibaldi atop the Gianicolo looking out over the city, the busts of many of his contemporaries and another great statue of his wife on a horse with a gun in one hand and a baby in the other. He likened here to Sarah Palin — hilarious.
Along the way, we were also lucky enough to hear from a professor emeritus of fine arts at Harvard, James Ackerman. He spoke to us about some of the architecture of some of the villas and large gates we passed under on our way down the hill. We entered into the square in front of the Vatican from the side, led by Corey Brennan, the Mellon Professor-in-charge, so that we would not be distracted by Saint Peter’s as he explained the history and significance of the square. We marveled for a bit and then walked down the road leading up to the vatican with the suppository looking light fixtures (not my comparison, obviously). We ended up at the St. Angel Castle. After walking back and forth across the bridge and peering up with wonderment at the Bernini and Bernini-student sculptures that line the bridge, we headed up the river toward the Aria Paci.
We chose a place called Gusto for lunch. It’s actually a bunch of different places, all next to each other; they own the whole block. We went to the one that serves a killer buffet for lunch. We piled our plates high (below) and our waitress hooked it up with the bill. There were 10 kinds of salads, shrimp, a white fish, some kind of roast beef, pork filets, two kinds of mozzarella, all sorts of grilled veggies and more.
We went in St. Peter’s the following day and it was everything I remembered. It’s really hard to take in just in one day. My cousin arrived in Rome and I met him and his crazy friend out later in the evening. Rome is a different place at night – a great place. We had lots of fun roaming the piazzas and campos looking for trouble.
We have arrived. The American Academy in Rome (AAR) is housed in the Mckim building, a beautiful old villa-like structure in front of a park atop the Gianicolo. It’s surrounded by embassies, more parks, other academies and sweeping views of the city. The food here is delicious. The kitchen is run by two ex-Chez Panisse chefs (as much as I know so far….) and also employs cooking interns on roughly five month cycles. It that something you might be interested in? Yes, please.
Amalfi is up there on my list of most incredible places in the world. It’s kind of a combination between Sonoma/Napa wine country and Malibu but way better. The architecture and construction is also amazing. Picture cliffs and seventy degree grades with hotels and houses jutting out surround by terraced hillsides growing grape vines and lemon groves. Maybe just look at the pictures.
These are a few pics of some of the great foo we had at Il Frontoio. Truffle pizza, gnocchi with truffles, steak with truffles, and some other yummy stuff.
At breakfast today downstairs at our Locanda I heard the chorus of “American Boy” echoing in from the kitchen. I can’t believe, in this random hill town in the middle of nothingness, people know and listen to this crap. Blows my mind.
Our first stop today, about 50 miles away, was a small town called Potigliano. There’s a synagogue in the town and of course, it was closed because we got there during naptime. Sadly there are only three Jews left there, not nearly enough for a minion or to have a traditional Shabbat service. But still, it was cool to see. The town is built into the top of a hill and the façade is very impressive. I would say it’s worth a visit.
Today we woke up early and did a little minor exploring over by the Guggenheim museum before leaving. We came back, bought some prosciutto, pasta and onion and I made a little lunch with the chiodini mushrooms over the pasta. We made it safely to Piazzale Roma with our bags and sanity, which, if you’ve ever ventured over the bridges of Venice with rolling luggage, is almost impressive. Turns out the car comes with built in navigation which, if you know my family at all, is absolutely necessary. (I have a superb sense of direction but everyone else doesn’t always listen to my advice…) We still decided to use our handy little Garmin as a backup, just in case.
The 4th day in Venice begins with sleeping in. Oh man oh man, another long day of art. So much art. The Arsenale is the old munitions depot of Venice. It’s basically a few huge buildings with loads and loads of art in them. On the way there we saw an awesome mobile fried fish kitchen on a boat. Hmmmm. Awesome. Pictures below.
So, the Arsenale: smashed mirrors, African villages, bread and bread, mechanical moons, cool benches, neon with mirrors (always cool), bird-feeder-chandeliers and much much more. My favorite installation was a video piece made by two Catalan filmmakers, David Bestue and Marc Vives which I found a pasted in below. Enjoy.
We met our old friend Max, his wife and his new baby girl Margarita for drinks (Margarita did not drink) and then returned to Birraria for a late dinner. Makin’ zucchini flowers for breakfast!
Today started off calmly enough. Actually it was a pretty laid back day, full of churches and six full hours of art. I hadn’t been inside the huge church on Piazza San Marco so we did that first. Surprisingly, there was water in the piazza. Yesterday there was none. Amazing. It comes up through the ground, like oil in movies. Scary and cool. They had the boardwalks up and they were crammed with stupid tourists and us. We are not stupid tourists. The church was huge, gold and extravagant and left little to desire except for maybe breathing room and Judaism.
Next: the Biennale. For those that don’t know, the Biennale is a bi-yearly art show that takes place in the Giardini and the Arsenale in Venice. The Giardini contains lots of pavilions of various architecture and size and each country gets one to fill with (usually) one artist’s work. We began in the Belgian pavilion. The artist, Jef Geys, requested that people from all over the world send in samples of medicinal plants and their locations. He arranged them nicely and I snapped a pic of the ones from New York (below). Finland’s pavilion showcased a man’s obsession with firemen and firemen memorabilia. The American pavilion displayed lots of flashy neon signs with different related words on top of each other. There was also this cool neon piece of two people poking each other in the eye.
Another cool piece displayed in the general exhibition showed the silhouettes of random objects turning on numerous carousels. Very nice. Let’s see, mats made of human hair, 100 euros each, a man with chin-balls, a man who drowned, an extravagant bathroom to symbolize overindulgence, and someone stretching oddly on a bench near the end of our delirious art tour.
We somehow made our way over to La Fenice and bought three tickets off old Italian women. I’m not sure they were even trying to sell them but my mom can be very intimidating when she wants something. It was worth it, I sat next to a little bambini and listened to the symphony orchestra play George Handel’s Musica sull’acqua (Water Music), Bach’s Suite n. 3 (which includes my favorite Bach piece, Air, Pachelbel’s Canon in re maggiore (the wedding song) and more Handel. It really was amazing and I would recommend going and maybe even getting tickets in advance to avoid the craziness that ensues just before show time. If you don’t get tickets, however, definitely try about half an hour before. Here’s a little audio recording I made of the last Handel piece: Georg Händel – Musica per i reali fuochi d’artificio
After the show, we went back to Oliva Nera for another Fritto Misto and this time it was huge. So good. Schie. Perfetto. Mouse-over any image to see a description and click on any of them to see them huge – apologies for the no-roto. May I suggest picking up your laptop and turning it clockwise or counterclockwise, appropriately.
First things first: the fish market. The goal here was to get up as early as possible and get to the market to get zucchini flowers to stuff and fry using the the technique I learned last night at Oliva Nera. We made it, bought flowers, explored a little and then cruised over to Osteria alla Botte for some cicchetti. A friend had taken us to this place on a previous trip and we had really liked it and our return trip did not disappoint. We had white polenta, schie, shrimp, octopus, baccala, sarde (a traditional onion and sardine dish), and cold seafood salad with celery. Go here.
Next we visited some churches and a posh new five star hotel and bough some new glasses at another shop we knew from a previous trip. They sell very cool frames so check them out here.
We ate dinner at a very reasonable (for Venice) pizza place called Birraria. Bad service, good food. Vaporetto home. Click on any photo below to see a super huge version of it! Put your little pointer over them for more info…. Cool, right? nerdy.
