Berlin:
Arriving in the city at 5AM by train, only the street cleaners and my companions were awake.
The first day we toured the city: past the great Radio tower at Alexander Platz, the parallel line of bricks that run through the city, (the only remnants of the Berlin wall). We passed the Imperial structures made of concrete, cement blocks and glass. A monochromatic gray covers the city, broken only by graffiti scribbled across the walls. But there is also beauty; there are memorials: the plaza where they burned the books. Empty white shelves sit, encased in glass, glaringly empty, surrounded by blackened cobblestones. Amber bought a book there for remembrance. The Holocaust Memorial, a league of concrete slabs, (poured and paid for by the same company who sold the gas to the Nazi’s for the gas chambers) line up in rows and hills creating streets of concrete tombs. The streets dip down into the earth. Running through them, the shadows encroach and you get lost in the maze of cold stone. There is the Parliment building, an amazing glass dome, which, when climed allows for a beautiful view of the city.
The Deutsches History museum (Containing Fragments of the Berlin Wall), Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin (Holding the Ishtar Gate and Pergamon Temple), Staatkiche Museen (holding Da Vinci, Botticelli and Bernini) and the STASI Prison are a few of my stops in Berlin.
I skipped the concentration camps in order to see Nan Goldberg’s work, A Balled of Sexual Addiction at the C/O Berlin. Her Photography is something which changed the world of photography through the snapshot. I bought street art at the “one day farmer’s market” and I went to hear the Berliner Philharmonic Orchestra play and sat on the stage while Sir Simon Rattle conducted a piece of Schoenberg’s with such emotion that even the violinists were crying as they played.
The most intense part of this trip (besides the German Techno clubs and German beer) was being in Berlin when the 20 year anniversary of the Wall falling happened. In 9 November 1989 the wall was first broken down and crossed legally. While I was there there was a huge celebration to commemorate this moment: a wall of wooden squares were placed across the city (where the origional wall had once been). After they blocks had all been decorated (by the same artists who first painted the wall years ago, if they were still alive) the new “wall” was knocked down like dominoes.Obama did not show up at this event although he was expected, Hilary Clinton spoke in his place however and Bon Jovi sang after the many German officials who gave speaches. It was a true celebration.
Milan:
In the fashion capital of the world I ogled at the Dolce and Cabana Ads. I participated in a dance in the central plaza, celebrating Milan Independence and ate my first Italian gelato sitting in the middle of a rose garden, surrounded by white marble statues of Venus and Zeus.
Venice:
This city is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. And it is dieing. My first day there a funeral was staged for the city. Hundreds locals with their gondolas adn boats traveled down the main canal with empty coffins towards the sea. The city has less that 65,000 people living in it, but over 500,000 tourists visiting it everyday.
While I was there I was one of the many tourists, running across bridges, riding in a gondola, buying a Venetian mask and Murano glass for friends and family. I spent the nights wandering the streets, popping in and out of the many churches, stopping only to light a candle in each one, as a symbol of remembrance and appreciation for the city. I am glad I got to see it, while it is still around.
Florence
The city rose abruptly out of the mountain. The picturesque villages that I had been watching through the train windows, composed of a single church surrounded by a few plaster houses petering off into the snow capped mountains ended. Suddenly then there was a carbon film covering everything. My hostel was in a man’s apartment. He greeted me and my travel companion with a hug and three kisses then sent us into his city. We walked the Giardino di Boboli and posed with Venus. We sipped liquid dark chocolate (hot coco so rich I will never call anything chocolate again, unless it be that). We climbed the Piazzale Michelangelo, posed with David, then moved on to the cemetery above. It was a more sacred version of Pere Lechese I think. Here all of the mausoleums were in tack, and every grave held fresh flowers. I assisted an elderly Italian woman in changing the flowers on her husband’s grave.
The next day Amber and I took off to see the Galleria dell’ Accademia and Musei Uffisi. Here we looked on Madonna with a Long Neck, The Birth of Venus and La Primavera. We saw David and The Rape of the Sabine Women next to Mapplethorpe photographs and we walked around the Duermo. Alas I could not afford to go up. Perhaps another time.
Rome
I have to admit first off that I did not make it to an Opera, although I did see the Opera house. I suppose there will be a next time for that as well.
Anyway, I did see the Colosseum at night, I did run in and out of the Arch De Triumph. I took photos in front of the Trevi fountain. I saw the park of ruins (old columns and decaying arches) and the Colonna Traiana. I sat on the steps of the Tori Imperiali and sat inside the Pantheon while rain poured in on my head from the great oculus in the middle of the coffered ceiling.
The little church Saint Maria’s which holds the statue “The ecstasy of St Teresa” was the most beautiful church I have ever seen and holds, without a doubt my favorite statue in all of Europe thus far. The detail, the strands of heaven reaching down, the love on her face is the most believable and wonderful looks I have ever seen on a human face. I am very glad to have seen “St Teresa” even thought it meant that I missed seeing the inside of St. Peter’s within the Vatican Walls.
The Vatican is another world. I have never seen such impregnable walls. The sheer span of them is alarming, upon stepping inside I was not sure if I was more frightened that I would never get out or that the church might someday destroy the works of beauty that are hidden within these walls. The Sistine Chapel is more breath taking in person that I could have ever imagined. I appreciated it all the more after the merry chase that I was sent on trying to find it. (Because everyone wants to see the chapel and nothing more, you are forced to pay for and traverses the entire Vatican Museum first.) While I admit I was impressed with the splendor of this museum and the seemingly impeccable records of every age of history that it holds in its records, I was amazed at how gaudy much of it was. I was also put out at the amount of strategically placed art, quotes and statues which symbolically and literally stamped on other religions. I am not sure what I should have been expecting however, so maybe I am just missing the point. And the point really was, Seeing the hand of God in the Sistine Chapel. I really love wet Fresco work.
Sicily Upon arrival we tried to stumble into our bed and breakfast, but got caught on the street as a funeral passed us by. The Father came first swinging the Incense, then the older women in black weeping. Following behind them came the younger men carrying the coffin, then the rest of the town. Silently they stopped in the house next to ours and had a funeral service. I kept my head down, an intruder on the moment. Our host arrived to usher us safely behind the gates of the hotel just after the service ended. Here we escaped into the lush garden within and barred ourselves within our room, until we were sure the town had settled in for the night. Only then did we venture out to view the salt mines of the city which lie in the shadow of a snow capped mountains. We walked in the olive, orange and pomegranate groves which grew at the edge of the village. It was a quite place. I enjoyed the rest, the warmth of the southern sun and the stillness of the town. I am sorry to have intruded on their grief.
Bologna.
I have flown into the sun before, but never with Italians singing a love song to the morning around me. Never have I heard such applause upon a safe landing as when we landed in Bologna. Never have I had to race to a plane: Ryan Air does not have assigned seats therefore passengers charge the boarding door. There was no need for “excusi” one simply shoves. (I was the last one on the plane and funnily enough, still got a good seat.) Bologna is a place where there is wonderful gelato, a place where I was informed that true Italians only eat pizza for dinner (anyone who eats it for lunch is obviously a tourist), where Pontius Pilot absolved himself of all of his sins in the town fountain, where there is one meat and cheese vendor and where red marble is the predominate rock.
It is also a city which does not open on the Sabbath, therefore I saw very little of it as no shop was open outside the airport. Or perhaps I saw more of the city as all of the locals paraded around with their large families. The men showing off the women on their arms and the Grandmother yelling at them all from behind as she rounded out the family tapping her cane on the cobblestones.
intrepid trekking 