| Palermo | Taormina | Sorrento | Florence | |
Venice, and on the way, Assisi, September 12-14, 2004
| We traveled from Sorrento to Assisi. Modern Assisi is in the valley. Ancient Assisi, like most ancient Roman villages, is on the top of the hill (easier to defend). So, when you drive through town to get to the church celebrating St. Francis' life, this is your first view. I suspect Francis would be appalled, all that construction to celebrate a life based on returning to nature. |
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It looks prettier from inside. This is the piazza for the church. There is actually a lower church (on this level) and an upper church (with another piazza up one level) and a crypt underneath the lower church where the remains of St. Francis lie. No photographs are allowed inside the church and our tour guide could not explain anything inside (but the brothers could lead tours of bishops through the church - we had to work our way around several of them.) |
Our Hotel was right next to the church (we suspect it may have been a Bishop's residence at some point in it's life) and we had a beautiful view of the valley. We couldn't see this view from our room, but could from the front porch.
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In the center of modern Assisi is the church of Ste Marie de Los Angeles (Mary of the Angels). Inside this church is another church - a little roadside chapel that Francis used to visit and where he would meditate. So it's kind of like those Russian Dolls, open one and you find another. |
| Our route from Assisi was to drive north of Rome on the A2, then turned east and follow the Via Flamimia (the ancient Roman Route) over the Apennine mountains. This follows the Tiber most of the way, but this view is just another mountain valley. |
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The trip over the top of the Apennine range was absolutely gorgeous. It didn't photograph well from the bus, but this picture gives you sense of the road. Note however that while we were intended to be on a limited access highway, that is under construction, and at this point we are on a 2 lane local highway, with a 30 km speed restriction, so the bus built up quite a queue of cars behind it (who didn't want to pay any attention to the speed limit.) Maybe it's worth adding at this point that the Italians believe that laws are best viewed as good suggestions. |
| Because of the delay in the trip due to the construction, we weren't able to make it to our planned Autostrade lay-by. So we exited the highway near the top of the mountain, drove through a little village, and found the Ristorante Ponte Giorgi for our "technical break". A mixture of refilling water supplies, emptying used water out of ourselves, and nicotine fixes. It was augmented at this time by an ATM stop, but no significant retail break. (What impressed me was that Francis (our tour director, and yes, he was named for St. Francis) even knew that this restaurant was here, and the parking lot was big enough for a bus.) |
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We arrived at Venice about 3 in the afternoon. There's a large causeway connecting Venice to the mainland (4 lane highway and shared train service) and with this as your first view of Venice, it's easy to say "what's unique about this). |
| However, just below the parking area, this is your first view of Venice.
All of a sudden, it hits you "this place is different (it's not even Kansas,
Toto)". From here on, there's no powered vehicles with wheels on them.
Distribution is either boat (where there are canals) or hand powered carts.
This is the grand canal, ahead you can see one (of only 3) bridges that
cross the grand canal. Venice is made up of 171 islands, so there are
tons of bridges. Note that nothing goes in or out without using a boat. This includes hotel laundry and garbage (we saw both, but the pictures aren't notable). |
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Not all the walkways are next to a canal (in fact, a lot of them are not). This is one of the large walkways and our hotel is just ahead on the right (so you can't really see it). This walkway will take you all the way to St. Mark's square (20 minutes at a fast walk, 1-3 hours at a tourist pace). |
| After dinner, we took a tour of Venice by night. This is the view from one of the bridges of the main restaurants near St. Mark's square. The purpose of the evening tour (our first tour) was to show you the "magical Venice", and our guide admitted that the purpose was to hide the blemishes. It sure is a beautiful spot (when you can't see the blemishes, and the water is not particularly high). |
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At the end of the tour, they hosted us to a drink in St. Mark's square. This picture shows some of our tour in front of St. Mark's. Behind me is a stage with a 3 piece band (there were about 3 such in the square) that entertained those present (serially, this was not a real battle of the bands, but there was competition for applause). |
| This, the Rialto bridge, is the oldest and most classic bridge over the grand canal. Note that there are shops along the bridge on both sides, so no spot to take tourist Euros is ignored. From the bridge, your only knowledge that there's a canal underneath is a set of stairs (till you get to the top, where you can step out to the balcony to look over the canal.) |
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Included in our tour was the classic gondola ride. Most of that ride was along the side streets as you can see here. As such, the road (canal) often got rather congested as delivery boats and gondolas tried to compete for the very limited navigable space. You'll note that the gondola driver does really stand back there, and uses a single oar to both propel and steer the boat. (At this point, we just left the grand canal, so he has his straw hat on. Once we got back on the side canal, he took it off.) |
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I'd noted above that the evening tour hid the blemishes. Here is a
picture of one of the palaces on grand canal that's in need of a bit of
repair. The problem is that, being a wet climate, even little things
need to be done often. We were told that the outside should be
whitewashed (even if a colored finish) annually, and the plaster needs to be
repaired every 3 years.
This of course is only the little problem; the big problem is that Venice is built on silt. Even with pilings (which pretty much cleared the trees from a portion of Poland), it is sinking and will sink, and there are no cheap fixes. The only real solution is the model of Holland, but these canals need that twice daily tide to wash out the dirty water. |
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| Palermo | Taormina | Sorrento | Florence |
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