A Barbarian's Impressions from the Eternal City
Venice, Italy, April 21
Sorry for the delay in this update. A few things have happened since I left Nice (April 17). The ferry to Corsica was fine, and more crowded than I expected for a weekday not in the prime tourist season.
I had some time to look around in Bastia before turning in at my hotel. I knew that I would have to take a bus to the ferry port for Sardinia, since the train doesn't go all the way there. But I found out that not only would I have to take the bus, I'd have to change buses at Porto Vecchio. I was not happy about this, since in my experience changing buses in small out-of-the-way places is generally not a good idea. Still, there was nothing for it.
The next day (April 18) I caught my bus and was happy to find out that a young Frenchman was going to be catching the same bus as me, to Bonifacio (where you catch the ferry for St.Therese, Sardinia). We both got out and waited were the driver of our bus told us to. We were 15 minutes early for our connecting bus. After forty-five minutes, my French companion (Louis) called the bus company from a public phone. He received no response, for which he had several possible explanations, the most charitable being siesta. After another forty-five minutes, we walked into the center of Porto Vecchio and looked for the bus company office, which we found occupied. They professed ignorance of what our problem might have been. About a half hour later our bus returned, and the driver claimed to have no idea she was supposed to stop where we were waiting. At this point I had missed two ferries, making it pretty much impossible for me to get to my planned lodgings for the night. Naturally, there were no more buses to Bonifacio that day. However, Louis continued to work the phones and eventually got someone to come and pick us up. They kindly gave me a ride to the ferry, and I was only 4.5 hours late getting on. I managed to find an internet cafe and shedule alternate logdings in Olbia, Sardinia, and I managed to catch the last bus there from St. Theresa.
On April 19, I ended up having to walk back into Olbia from my hotel a couple of miles out of town, being unwilling to spring for another taxi after having paid for one the night before. The walk was nice until I got close to Olbia and it turned out I was on the wrong side of a highway interchange with no walkway available. But with my binoculars I spotted a construction site that offered fairly easy access to the other side, and with only once fence climbed and one snake almost stepped on I was tehre. My first stop was a row of cheesemakers' shops, just across from the hospital as it happened, where I went looking for the legendary Sardinian specialty casu marzu, cheese with live maggots. Unfortunately, it proved to be out of season. Maggoty cheese is only eaten in the summer, beginning in late June at the earliest (although one of the three cheesemongers I talked to held out for July). And the cheesemakers of Olbia, having strict standards to uphold, will sell no maggot-infested cheese before its time.
In compenstaion, I took a rail trip into the interior of Sardinia as far as Oristano, with lots of nice scenery. Since my overnight ferry didn't leave until 9 pm, I had enough time to see at least a bit of the island. The resemblance to parts of southern California was uncanny, complete with the rock outcroppings with scrubby desert vegetation.
After my difficulties in Corsica, I decided that I had been planning too much stuff before my deadline of May 14 in Baku. With regret, I decided to skip the Balkans entirely and head straight for Budapest, and spend more time in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria rather than try to see Sicily, Albania, and the Adriatic coast.
The ferry left on time, and my cheapest deck passage proved to be with a group of German schoolkids and their two harried supervisors. They had brought along a small plug-in refrigerator, which struck me as impressive planning. I put in my earplugs and slept soundly until we reached Civitavecchia, Italy, in the morning (April 20). After that I got my ticket for Venice, where the overnight train to Budapest can be caught. I ended up going through Rome, and I had almost four hours of layover. It looked like I'd be able to drop my backpack off at the station, but the left-luggage line turned out to be 45 minutes long, which was more time than I was willing to spend. Still, I was able to visit St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, which was impressive despite all the pictures I had seen of it. The crowd barriers designed to channel the lines of pilgrims and other visitors into Disneyland-style twisty lines did spoil the effect a bit, though.
Still, the overall atmosphere was just what I had hoped. The world's hack novelists and conspiracy theorists are incredibly lucky that something like the Vatican exists. Nothing they could come up with on their own could be half as bizarre. Some people, I understand, choose to follow religions that do not include awesome buildings, weird rites nobody understands, and quasi-states with mercenary soldiers dressed up like Raggedy Ann dolls. But I'll never understand why.
After the Vatican I visited the ruins of the Circus Maximus and the Colosseum. I had a luch of beer, bread, and cheese in the shadow of the ruins of the Forum, and it felt good to be in a long line of barbarians from beyond the known world who had stopped to gawk at Rome. Then I walked to Trajan's Column which celebrates his conquest of Jerusalem in 79 AD (at least, I think that's the date). The column has a bunch of pictures in bas-relief in a spiral pattern up the column, complete with panel divisions. I couldn't find the panel showing the looting of the Temple, despite spending a couple of minutes with my binoculars. Shame on me for looking for a depiction of such a nasty event, I suppose.
From Rome to Venice I took a Eurostar express, which was a smooth ride and featured an incredible number of tunnels. In Venice I ended up with about 90 minutes before the train to Budapest, which should be the scene of my next dispatch.
Sorry for the delay in this update. A few things have happened since I left Nice (April 17). The ferry to Corsica was fine, and more crowded than I expected for a weekday not in the prime tourist season.
I had some time to look around in Bastia before turning in at my hotel. I knew that I would have to take a bus to the ferry port for Sardinia, since the train doesn't go all the way there. But I found out that not only would I have to take the bus, I'd have to change buses at Porto Vecchio. I was not happy about this, since in my experience changing buses in small out-of-the-way places is generally not a good idea. Still, there was nothing for it.
The next day (April 18) I caught my bus and was happy to find out that a young Frenchman was going to be catching the same bus as me, to Bonifacio (where you catch the ferry for St.Therese, Sardinia). We both got out and waited were the driver of our bus told us to. We were 15 minutes early for our connecting bus. After forty-five minutes, my French companion (Louis) called the bus company from a public phone. He received no response, for which he had several possible explanations, the most charitable being siesta. After another forty-five minutes, we walked into the center of Porto Vecchio and looked for the bus company office, which we found occupied. They professed ignorance of what our problem might have been. About a half hour later our bus returned, and the driver claimed to have no idea she was supposed to stop where we were waiting. At this point I had missed two ferries, making it pretty much impossible for me to get to my planned lodgings for the night. Naturally, there were no more buses to Bonifacio that day. However, Louis continued to work the phones and eventually got someone to come and pick us up. They kindly gave me a ride to the ferry, and I was only 4.5 hours late getting on. I managed to find an internet cafe and shedule alternate logdings in Olbia, Sardinia, and I managed to catch the last bus there from St. Theresa.
On April 19, I ended up having to walk back into Olbia from my hotel a couple of miles out of town, being unwilling to spring for another taxi after having paid for one the night before. The walk was nice until I got close to Olbia and it turned out I was on the wrong side of a highway interchange with no walkway available. But with my binoculars I spotted a construction site that offered fairly easy access to the other side, and with only once fence climbed and one snake almost stepped on I was tehre. My first stop was a row of cheesemakers' shops, just across from the hospital as it happened, where I went looking for the legendary Sardinian specialty casu marzu, cheese with live maggots. Unfortunately, it proved to be out of season. Maggoty cheese is only eaten in the summer, beginning in late June at the earliest (although one of the three cheesemongers I talked to held out for July). And the cheesemakers of Olbia, having strict standards to uphold, will sell no maggot-infested cheese before its time.
In compenstaion, I took a rail trip into the interior of Sardinia as far as Oristano, with lots of nice scenery. Since my overnight ferry didn't leave until 9 pm, I had enough time to see at least a bit of the island. The resemblance to parts of southern California was uncanny, complete with the rock outcroppings with scrubby desert vegetation.
After my difficulties in Corsica, I decided that I had been planning too much stuff before my deadline of May 14 in Baku. With regret, I decided to skip the Balkans entirely and head straight for Budapest, and spend more time in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria rather than try to see Sicily, Albania, and the Adriatic coast.
The ferry left on time, and my cheapest deck passage proved to be with a group of German schoolkids and their two harried supervisors. They had brought along a small plug-in refrigerator, which struck me as impressive planning. I put in my earplugs and slept soundly until we reached Civitavecchia, Italy, in the morning (April 20). After that I got my ticket for Venice, where the overnight train to Budapest can be caught. I ended up going through Rome, and I had almost four hours of layover. It looked like I'd be able to drop my backpack off at the station, but the left-luggage line turned out to be 45 minutes long, which was more time than I was willing to spend. Still, I was able to visit St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, which was impressive despite all the pictures I had seen of it. The crowd barriers designed to channel the lines of pilgrims and other visitors into Disneyland-style twisty lines did spoil the effect a bit, though.
Still, the overall atmosphere was just what I had hoped. The world's hack novelists and conspiracy theorists are incredibly lucky that something like the Vatican exists. Nothing they could come up with on their own could be half as bizarre. Some people, I understand, choose to follow religions that do not include awesome buildings, weird rites nobody understands, and quasi-states with mercenary soldiers dressed up like Raggedy Ann dolls. But I'll never understand why.
After the Vatican I visited the ruins of the Circus Maximus and the Colosseum. I had a luch of beer, bread, and cheese in the shadow of the ruins of the Forum, and it felt good to be in a long line of barbarians from beyond the known world who had stopped to gawk at Rome. Then I walked to Trajan's Column which celebrates his conquest of Jerusalem in 79 AD (at least, I think that's the date). The column has a bunch of pictures in bas-relief in a spiral pattern up the column, complete with panel divisions. I couldn't find the panel showing the looting of the Temple, despite spending a couple of minutes with my binoculars. Shame on me for looking for a depiction of such a nasty event, I suppose.
From Rome to Venice I took a Eurostar express, which was a smooth ride and featured an incredible number of tunnels. In Venice I ended up with about 90 minutes before the train to Budapest, which should be the scene of my next dispatch.
posted by Pijus | 7:20 PM
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