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After another sleepless night, my cough subsided enough for us to perform the long postponed rites for which Venice is named and famed. Euphoric to begin with, we walked out the door of the hotel and found a different city.

The sunshine dazzled, the sky shone lapis blue, the buildings sparkled. We strolled down the shadowed “Calle” back toward the Rialto and found the gothic arched open-air fishmarket that had been an empty stone platform the previous afternoon packed with excited fishmongers and customers and with trays of squid, octopus, shrimp, and prawns. We made our way through the adjoining open air vegetable market and climbed the Rialto bridge and looked down the Grand Canal at a scene of unreal richness and beauty. This was what we came for–we and the millions of pilgrims who arrived here for the last thousand years: an ancient work of art that you can walk and ride around in.

We boarded Vaporetto 1 and found seats near the bow. Each second of the trip presented a new spectacular view: a gorgeous palace, a hanging garden, a luxurious gondola, the opening of a side canal down which one could see a world of bridges and towers, a church with a façade in classical, baroque or uniquely Venetian style. And within minutes, the whole overwhelming prospect transformed as the boat moved from one bank to the other and followed the waterway’s serpentine curves.

Around one, the banks widened and the road ahead changed from a narrow river to a wide expanse of sea scattered with distant islands of towers and domes outlined against a vast sky. The right bank ended in a peninsula on which stood the cathedral of Salute–health. The left bank revealed the climbing tower of the familiar St. Mark’s Square, the anticipated climax of the voyage. I was grateful to be looking at much of this display through the tiny frame of the camera’s viewfinder, both to preserve the memory of it, and to contain my present impressions.

The vaporetto emptied at the San Marco quay, and the wonderland sensation gave way to claustrophobia that reminded me of the crowding we had seen in the many frescoes of both heaven and hell. Jostelled along by a mob of fellow gawkers, past stand after stand of souvenir hawkers, I noticed a monstrous apparition growing on the horizon, blocking my view of the sea and the islands:
it was a cruise ship taller than any of the towers of Venice and as long as St. Marks plaza itself, heading straight for us, with mobs of tiny people crowding its decks–a barbaric invasion of the grossest modernity laying claim to this ancient sanctuary. I stood on line to use the public bathroom, and the dour woman at the turnstile told me the three day pass I flashed her would not work here and it would cost a euro to urinate. As we approached the famous square, along with endless lines of people waiting to enter tower, cathedral and palace, we saw the two huge facades under renovation covered with billboards advertising corporate sponsorship by Mazda and a hotel chain. My fatigue returned, so we wound our way back to the hotel through the shadowed labyrinth of tiny streets, tunnels and bridges between St. Marks and Rialto.

It was a relief to be back in our neighborhood, where the bright sunshine made every square meter of brickwork or pavement or façade or alley prospect into a visual and intellectual feast. After lunch in a quiet nearby square, our table at the edge of a tiny canal wharf, we penned a route that would end on the quay facing the island of Iudecca through the maze on our map. The souk-like layout of the city makes this a challenge, since almost no streets are longer than 100 yards, and many are dead ended at cul-de-sacs, wharves, and gates. Each of the twists and turns presents new delights–fountains, entryways, rooftop gardens and clotheslines, contrasts of texture, color, form that have evolved and ripened over the ages, walls and tunnels darkly framing the sundrenched images ahead.

Every few minutes, the slot canyons of streets and canals open to a small piazza–a space by a church or civic building graced with cafes and occasionally a few trees. A third of the way through our itinerary, we stopped at one and I sat in the sun on the steps of a little bridge and nodded off into a luscious slumber. Jan awakened me after a few minutes and urged we go back to the hotel, where I tried to continue my nap as she started trying to locate a doctor. The Blue Cross contact phone numbers she had brought yielded only discussions with people in India and no medical referral, while I regained strength, encouraged by an ability to sleep without coughing. We went out again, for a short sortie, and found ourselves at a flea market in the piazza of San Silvestre. This was a strictly local event, where kids played and residents sold stuff they collected. Jan needed a hat to replace the crummy one she had purchased from a stall in San Marco. On one of the tables we found a finely crafted Tyrolean chapeau and managed in pidgin Italian to bargain the seller to an acceptable price. The first full night sleep in over a week came early.

Saturday morning is again brilliant weather. We decide to spend two more nights in Venice and abandon the idea of going to Padua or Verona before meeting our Elderhostel group in Siena. There’s no room at the Mercanti but after a short search we find another place nearby, The Vecie Poste: the room a little less money, a lot less plush, bordering a small canal and graced with the occasional fragrance of sewage. In contrast to the robotic filipino gentlemen who ran the Mercanti, this place has a manager who’s a real concierge–the brother of the owner of a fine restaurant with the same name next door.

Roaming the immediate neighborhood we find an internet access place, located at the back of a blue jeans store, reached through a pigeon-shit caked alley strongly smelling of sewage to catch up on email. I tire and we return to our room with picnic lunch for a rest. Jan has found announcement of free concert at 4:00 in the Church of Salute. We leave early and now expertly find San Silvestre Vaporetto stop. We sit on the steps of this cathedral, looking out at the islands in the lagoon and San Marco in the afternoon sun and then walk around it through back streets which reveal some of the infrastructure repairs that appear all over the city. Part of a small canal has been sealed off to replace ancient leaking lead sewer pipes and stone and wood foundations of houses and to raise the pathway a foot to protect it from flood tides and provide space underneath for the electrical lines and other infrastructure that are now attached to the outside of buildings. The old stones of the original walkway are stored in piles to be put back in place and create the illusion of antiquity. This reminds me of the restoration of Walden Pond I saw a couple of years ago in Massachusetts. Human impacts had created so much erosion that the banks were all bulldozed and new rock and sand and vegetation were installed and stabilized with heavy steel netting that was only visible if pointed out. Restoration like this is observable everywhere in the city. The effort, skill and cost required must be astronomical, and as it proceeds, the old decaying Venice will indeed turn into a new theme-park version.

We returned to Salute in time to get good seats for the concert of Bach solo cello suites played by a passionate young artist sitting by himself in a chair in front of the altar. For the last section of the program–a concerto duet with organ–he disappeared into the loft and then appeared again up high to take bows with the young woman accompanying him. The cavernous cathedral made the music reverberate, but watching the performers hands and facial expressions helped to articulate the sound. The longer I sat the more I could appreciate the wealth of detail in the baroque interior, the hanging lamps of varied and coordinated design, the huge torsioned sculptures of the four evangelists leaning on the high pediments, the dozens of additional figures nestled in alcoves, and the light coming through the windows reflected off the water outside getting more brilliant as the afternoon deepened. The full baroque experience converged on the sculptural complex atop the high altar: a triumphant woman holding an infant in her arms, an old man to the right kneeling at her feet with arms outstretched in gratitude and to the left an ugly figure in flight covering his face. The guidebook explanation hit home–this church was a tribute to the Virgin Mary erected by the Venetians in gratitude for the cessation of the plague in the late seventeenth century. Its name, Salute, means health.

After the concert we took a walk along the great promenade facing the island of Giudecca across the lagoon. The wide walkway and the broad expanse of water was a welcome contrast to the exquisite but confining vistas of the calles and rivos where we’d spent the earlier part of the day and most of yesterday. Before taking the Vaporetto back home, we had a drink in a café on pilings over the water. The setting sun painted Jan gold in her new Venetian hat.

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Jan awakened Thursday morning around 8, just as I finished writing, and we packed our suitcases, paid the bill and shmoozed with Sandro, who it turns out is not the concierge but since last week the new owner of the Fiorentino. Looking like a sad, ethereal and beautiful figure in a Botticelli painting, he told us he’d been an accountant in Venice, but during a two-week vacation had discovered that his life was boring and decided to buy this hotel from the former fisherman and his family who had owned it. Nevertheless he was lonely, he said, and he was looking for someone to share his life.

In a light intermittent rain we found our way back to Villa Antenori, an unusually fine looking example of an urban palazzo we’d passed several times in our wanderings. I wanted to see what they looked like inside, behind their forbidding facades. It seemed to be open to the public and housed a wine merchant of the family that built it in the fifteenth century. I found its interior more harmonious than any I had seen, including the Michaelangelo tomb, especially in its combination of traditional furnishings and modern amenities. We roamed in the courtyard, sneaked upstairs to the first floor and higher to see what a top floor loggia was, and walked away with some wine brochures.

After another trip to the central market for groceries to eat on the train, we hauled our bags to the station to catch the 1:30 to Venice. We both got upset upon discovering that Jan had read the tickets wrong and our train had just left, but it turned out another one left 40 minutes later.

The approach to Venice is a fantasy voyage. The train traverses a long causeway in the Adriatic before reaching terminus at the island commonwealth. Exiting the station you face the Grand Canal lined by oriental filigree and heavy baroque palaces and are engulfed by a furious hubbub of tourists. At a row of ticket windows you buy three day passes for the Vaporetti, the boats providing public transportation, and as you advance to the dock it feels like entering Disneyland. Only this Disneyland is mildewed and rotting and covered with advertising banners and graffiti, and its air is thick with humidity, pollution and sewage.

Debarking from the Vaporetto at Rialto bridge, the sense of crowding, commercialism and delapidation intensified, We bought gelati to fortify us in climbing the steps and penetrating the crowds with our awkward baggage, and followed the smell of the fishmarket to guide us to our hotel. We found the discreet bronze sign of Al Mercanti on a quiet and uncommercial alley. The inside of the building reminded me of Villa Antenori–ancient ceiling beams, brick walls and stone stairs integrated with new plaster, and rich carpets, fabrics, furniture and fixtures. Our first floor room up four flights of stairs was designed by a professional decorator with a large budget. Marble floors, silk brocade pillows, curtains and spreads and collector prints on the walls. Jan led me to the balcony in the vestibule from which one could look down the alley and see a marble statue of a naked pagan god standing in a lit alcove of a wall, its broken white reflection shimmering in the black water of the Grand Canal.

I was again feeling shaky at this late dinner hour, so we found a quiet restaurant around the corner -Antica Trattoria ai Tosi–and were fortified by a fine modest dinner of spaghetti, lasagna and salad.

Friday 5 AM

Yet another night without sleep. I spent it working on this journal or sitting in the steam bath I made of our bathroom to loosen the thickening mucous in my lungs. How can body and mind can take all this punishment and keep coming back for more? Good news: the laxative I bought yesterday worked and the exercises from chiropracter and physical therapist have just about eliminated back pain.

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After another night of coughing, insomnia and work at the computer, I woke Jan at 6:30 and insisted on leaving the hotel room where I was feeling imprisoned. She agreed and we walked slowly hand in hand down down to the Arno through quiet streets freshly washed by street sweepers, the only noise that of garbage trucks. The city is active and loud until 3 AM but then remains quiet till 7:30. We went to the middle of the Ponte Vecchio, usually a furious hubbub, with only the company of a man with a broom and a walkie talkie, and watched the light come up over the river. Seeing streets by now familiar, we appreciated more of the architectural details evident at every turn and took delicious cappucino and apple pastries at the brightly lit “New York Café,” served by a tall elegant man in a black vest, white shirt and yellow silk tie.

Back in the room around 8, we rested and showered and then set out again in pursuit of the neoplatonic beauty which the city offers to its lovers. But this time I wanted to see it pagan form, feeling a bit satiated with crucifixions and madonnas. We walked to the Uffizi to see if there was a chance of getting in, but the line was endless at 9:30 a.m. so we went around a couple of corners to the Bargello, which the green guide and Ricksteves said was underrated. The turreted palace, police station and jail was another civic museum, and provided just what I wanted: tits, asses, penises attached to beautiful bodies in three dimensions. There were marbles and bronzes and ceramics, many of them images of the God Bacchus, including Michaelangelo’s famous early work, and there were splendid sculptures of birds of many feathers produced by an artist I never heard of named Giovanni di Bologna. The building was uncrowded for the first hour we were there, and in most galleries one could take pictures, though not with flash and not in the ones containing the Donatellos and Michaelangelo.

We had a kind of quiche in a café and decided to head for more Michaelangelo in the Medici Chapel of San Lorenzo, passing along the back of the Duomo on the way and appreciating its immense size through the web of scaffolding that covers most of it. Passing building after building branded with the ubiquitous Medici coat of arms, we paid a hefty fee to enter the Chapel of the Princes, which was also largely covered by scaffolding inside and out. Entering the tomb felt like entering a pyramid of the Pharaohs”overwhelming in grandeur but more in arrogance and morbidity. The chamber is not wide but hundreds of feet tall, lined in black marble inlaid with multicolored stone panels and illuminated only from the dome on top. Eight huge sarcophagi upon which stand 30 foot figures of their inhabitants are set into the octagonal walls. The whole things smacks of Darth Vader or the Lord of Mordor, and I found it more disturbing than tacky”an expression of dynastic wealth not humbled by but appropriating the power of Death. Ironic to have this all in a church where you worship a God of humility and compassion whose central mission was to cleanse the church in his time of materialism. Now I sound like the Florentine Savonarola, who left no monuments.

The adjoining New Sacristy is the three star attraction designed by Michaelangelo and containing several of his sculptures. After the hugeness of the Chapel of the Princes”all this remember inside a church”its more modest scale and muted gray and white colors were less impressive, and for me disappointing. I had studied this room in art history and been told how great were the sculptures by many authorities, but by this time I was less than sympathetic to the Medici family, and it looked to me that Giulio’s neck was too long, the figure of Dusk’s head was placed at the wrong place on his shoulders, Night’s feminine body looked like a male with breasts, and Day was unfinished. Compared with the many other Renaissance interiors I ‘d been admiring in Florence, the architecture of this chamber was overcluttered with familiar ornamental devices.

We had a nice lunch of pasta and a sliced beef urugula salad and then returned to the Fiorentino room for another rest. But despite the lack of sleep the night before and my continuing occasional cough, I was restless and Jan decided we should go to the Brancacci chapel on the other side of the river. We arrived at 4:30 and allowed to remain 15 minutes by a beautiful young woman with a Maria Callas look. I hadnt been eager to go”I seemed to remember seeing it when we had visited Florence in 1969”but the restoration and new lighting made the small chapel radiant with color and lively portraiture. The most famous image of Adam and Eve’s despairing departure from Paradise is a small unobtrusive panel, and the bright pink of the punishing angel’s cloak brightens up even this tragic episode with what seems to have been the young artist’s favorite color.

Since it was nearby, neither of us were flagging, and they were open later than any museums, we decided to head over to the Boboli gardens to get a view of the city and spend some time in a more natural setting. Fortified by gelato we passed through the gargantuan fortress of the Pitti Palace and climbed the terraced mountainside as the light got richer and more angled. The gardens are not as well maintained as they would have been under their owners, with unmowed lawns and untrimmed trees in many areas. The Neptune fountain with splashing water, artificial grotto and genuine mallards and carp, caught the changing late afternoon light and as we climbed higher grand prospects of the city of Florence came into view. Just as we were about to head back down, I noticed a terrace at the end of the path, and at the top of the stairs a splendid new prospect opened before us”the hills to the south of the city, including the Church of San Mineato, a crenellated tower on the horizon and a green expanse of olive groves and conical cypresses that looked like the typical Tuscan landscape we look forward to entering after returning from Venice.

We walked back through narrow streets filled with small opulent storefronts displaying original renaissance and ancient treasures for sale, and watched the sunset on the Ponte, where Jan arranged for us to exchange picture taking with a romantic young Asian couple. By the time we got back to the room there was just time to shower before Brenda showed up for our evening dinner engagement. I was tired and ravishingly hungry. It took quite a while to figure out dinner plans and Brenda wanted to show us a café that’s a famous poet’s hangout, but by the time we reached there at 8:15, I almost passed out, so she got me some leftover bits of bruschetta, and then we hiked on to our rendezvous point with her partner Don in ZaZa café in the Mercado square. Over a meal with mixed reviews, we enjoyed conversation covering 35 years of our pasts.

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Monday morning brought relief from the sore throat. Jan negotiated with the concierge to give us two more nights in Florence, to delay our arrival in Venice and to postpone our visit with Brenda. We found some lovely coffee and brioche and panini in the square and stood in line to pay admission to Santa Maria Novella, the cathedral 20 feet from our window.

Those who come to pray can enter a special chapel free of charge, said the sign, and photography is forbidden. The side entrance, only recently reopened after having been closed off for several centuries, led us into an immense, light airy space, illuminated by stained glass and circular clear windows, the walls painted white, ornamented with widely spaced paintings and sculptures.

Opposite the door, a Massaccio fresco seemed to make the space grow deeper with its pronounced perspectival rendering of God presenting the crucified Jesus to his wealthy patrons in front of a hugely receding nave. To the right was a twenty foot crucifixion in bright yellows oranges, reds and blacks, hanging from a rod 25 feet above the floor and 150 from the ceiling. I averted my eyes in order to save the full impact of what I recognized as Giotto’s work, dazzlingly restored, for later, and looked down the nave to the rainbow colors of the floor-to-ceiling frescoes surrounding the central altar. Like the city itself, this church offered more than we could absorb. With help of our Green guide, we focused first on a raised chapel with early frescoes of the Divine Comedy–one wall Inferno, the other Paradiso, gaining orientation by identifying places and people we recognized from our memory of the poem. Then we descended to the Sacristy whose doorway was a combination of classical architectural stability, melted into an organic flower-like entry. Inside were huge wooden cabinets with dozens of large drawers to hold vestments, more paintings and a della Robia relief, all in late Renaissance style.

After two hours we decided to take a break from the church and walk to the central market for lunch, and return in the late afternoon. The mercado is a two story temple of food, just closing as we got there. We bought beautiful muscat grapes, olives, bread and “gorgonzola dolce,” (a soft luscious cheese), and ate on the steps of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, bothered by pigeons who wanted our food and blew ash into when we sushed them off. Instead of going inside we decided to come back for the free concert advertised to start at 9: 00 that night, and took an adjoining doorway into the courtyard of the Laurentian library, whose arcade we circled entranced.

Then we walked back to Santa Maria Novella and spent another two hours feasting on the art. First a chapel decorated by Duccio, which was, Jan noted in the guidebook just for this church that we had bought, the location of the start of Boccaccio’s Decameron where a group of young aristocrats meet to plan their escape from the plague in Florence. What sort of portent?

Then Fillipino Lippi, and Ghirlandaio frescos, a Brunelleschi Crucifix and the Giotto Christ. The wealth of beauty and of history in this randomly adopted church of ours is unbelievable. It in itself merits a trip to Europe.

Back in our room at 5:00, I started feeling bad again and Jan offered me the Z pack antibiotic she had gotten from the doctor in case she got sick. It was clear we wouldn’t attend the nine oclock concert. We went for a quick pizza meal in the square, and I tried to get to sleep.

Tuesday morning, I awoke and realized I was really sick. My cough felt like a rattle in the lungs, and I had sweaty fever. Jan met Brenda and her friend Kiki and went to the Pharmacia and many other places while I slept most of the day.She brought the two visitors back to the room and I made pleasantries for a few minutes, but I was so sick I asked them to leave. I took the second Z pack pill, along with vitamin C and the herbal remedy Jan bought at the Pharmacia, slept all afternoon, and went out with her to the square for dinner and a short walk. I couldnt get to sleep because of the cough so have stayed up till 3:00 A.M. writing this entry.

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After 24 hours in transit we arrived at the Hotel Fiorentino Sunday afternoon. It was the lowest price place I could find on the internet. The guidebook said it was in a high crime neighborhood, the entrance looked seedy, the hotel clerk at first said he couldn’t find our reservation. But after we climbed three narrow flights of stairs and mastered the old lock and key, we gasped. The ceiling was fifteen feet and two corner windows gave out on the vast complex of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Novella and the railroad station. The stone balustraded balcony could have been where Mussolini harangued the crowds. It felt like standing on a rock in the middle of a fast flowing river of buses, cars, and pedestrians.

Despite jetlag and fatigue we were driven by hunger and curiosity to go out. We bought some bad sandwiches for a picnic in the adjoining square in front of the 14th century cathedral façade where a small band played in the warm and surprisingly quiet late afternoon, and then we started wandering toward the center. The city was full of people”mostly goodlooking and stylish Italians”but didn’t feel overcrowded. Some divine gelato made up for the sandwiches, and soon we were in front of the Duomo. We sauntered from piazza to piazza”each of which could be the center of a great city– admired the clothing on sale in shops and stalls, bought a new guide book, and came back to our little palazzo to shower and rest. Then we set out for dinner at the square near the central mercado, mixing with pedestrians, bicyclists, scooters, and people pushing their market stalls through the winding streets. We came out on a large square between the market and the dome of San Lorenzo full of lights, music and buzzing outdoor restaurants on platforms roofed with tents. It was 8:00 p.m.”time to celebrate dinner! The salad of urugula, fresh corn tomatos cucumbers and carrots and mozzarella, with bottles of vinegar and oil on the table was a fine overture. During the two hour meal, we drank a liter of wine, joked with the amiable waiter, and had an animated conversation with two young people from London at the adjoining table. We seemed to have the city in our pocket.

6:00 A.M. Monday September 26.

Still dark out but the noise of streetcleaners is deafening. I got up at 5:00 after an uncomfortable night of sore throat and insomnia. Once I rose from horizontal, took some vitamin C and started processing pictures, I felt better, but still apprehensive about the coming day: will I get sicker? Will we connect with our old friend Brenda who’s invited us to stay at her place outside the city for the next two nights or will we be forced to find a different hotel here in town? Will my digestion return? Such perils provide spice to the pleasures of travel.

Saturday September 24. Sitting on the floor in LAX international terminal next to the only electric outlet on a mile of concourse. Many wall receptacles have been removed and the holes spackled over. There’s no wireless internet connection here, so I will try to simulate the Blogger interface in Microsoft Word.

Here’s Jan in a chair across the carpet as this area fills with passengers waiting for a JAL jumbojet. I took her picture, downloaded it to the laptop, put it in here. With a camera phone I could have snapped and sent it directly to the blogger server. Once again I’m technically behind. A good consumer of technology, I find the new tools inspire creative play. How does this mesh with a primitivist preference of the simple and natural”in gardening, eating, economic exchange, and child rearing? How can I teach Ecoliterature as a web based class in which we exchange journal entries and photos about wilderness experience online?

Last night was insomniac again”I got up at 1:20 and at 4:00 and wrote emails. There was plenty of time to load up and lock down the house this morning before we left, but once we got to the airport I realized I’d forgotten the computer power supply chord. Between flights, we took a short cab ride to Fry’s, a huge L.A. electronics supply house near the airport where we found a replacement that would work with my Mac. Without it I’d have been unable to keep this journal.