Rome puns! Who doesn’t love ’em? Anyway… by this point in the trip, I had my sea legs under me so I was ready to get out and about. Which was fortunate, because the whole point of the trip was coming up on the agenda. A Caravaggio exhibition is a tricky thing, it turns out. Between the muddy authenticity of some of his signature works and a PR machine that has been working steadily since the artist was first brought to prominence (which is not to say ‘discovered’, merely touted) by Roberto Longhi in the early 20th century, making sure that Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio remains installed amongst the artistic firmament, getting a grip on what exactly is going on with the artist can be tricky. After all, I’m no art historian; I’m a passionate amateur who has the dumb f#*@ luck to be indulging an art education with a so-far-endless series of A+++ field trips. So, ok amateur, what did you get out of your latest expedition?

There’s two ways to look at this, and I tend to prefer the second. The first, for completion’s sake, is that the exhibition is somewhat overblown. The exhibition contains 25 works ascribed to Caravaggio from all over Europe… but 25 is also the number of Caravaggio’s paintings that are permanently on exhibition in Rome. Not the same 25, but still… it is not an exhaustive undertaking. Compare it, for example, to the Donatello exhibition Lisa and I went to in Florence a number of years ago – that one took up two separate museums that worked together to curate the thing. This was four modest rooms. Then there was the thematic break-up of the rooms, which seemed a bit helter skelter. “Making a Name in Rome” seemed to set us on a historical look at his work, but then you had “the sacred and the tragic” for themes and “invigorating the darker shades” to highlight the techniques he is most admired for. All fine, but scattershot. Not that I’m an expert, but I will say that Lisa and I have been around the block enough times that we have actually had long discussions about the curation of some exhibitions we’ve been to. I’ve got some chops, at least. So, yes, there’s a case to be made that museums gonna museum, magnets aren’t going to sell themselves, and maybe this isn’t quite the generation-defining show that they want you to think it is.

The other way of looking at it, though, goes something like this: relax. It’s four rooms full of some truly amazing work. You had to go to Rome to see it. This is not a bad way to spend your time. So yeah, take it easy and enjoy yourself. And the truth is I did enjoy it. Experience-r of field trips or not, I hadn’t seen a lot of these paintings, and certainly not in the context they were in, placed next to each other as they were.

Of particular interest was one of the most iconic “Judiths” we’ve ever seen (although I had seen this one before, who cares?). We’ve talked about this before, but in brief: the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes has been the subject of numerous works of art through the years; given its position in the Bible, it has been “allowed” by most regimes and patrons, but it provides artists a pretty wide-open opportunity. Do you feature the demure wife taking on a burdensome task? Do you minimize the murder as almost besides the point? Or, as some artists have certainly done, do you take this as a chance to depict a woman exerting her power fully in a way they rarely ever get to do? Those are the best ones, including Caravaggio’s. And yes, I even bought the magnet.

The exhibiton happily consumed, I spent the rest of the day wandering my neighborhood which, as we were adjacent to the old Borghese estate, was not a bad place to kill an afternoon. I even made it over to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, which is fairly modest as far as state-owned art galleries go, as they forsook a dialog between the artists of Europe to instead focus on Italian artists. Totally fine, obviously, and I was in Italy, but if you scratch your memory you’ll probably come up short on a lot of notable Italian artists who participated in, for example, the Impressionist movement. This is not an error of omission. (Ahem.) Not that everything in there was bland or anything, far from it.

Heat, art, and Italian food, not actually that bad a combination really. You will not be surprised to hear, however, that I was quite ready to return home to my bride after all of this, and so I did.

A man alone in the city of Rome… summertime, when men and women dress for comfort rather than modesty. Yes, a fella could get up to a lot of hijinks if we were disposed to doing so. On the other hand, a fella might just be disposed to hiding in his air conditioned lodging and watch movies for a couple of days when he’s all by himself, in his 50s, and it’s hot as hell outside. So, with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other… actually that sounds like two devils; typical… anyway, with two whispering critters on my shoulders, what exactly did I get up to in The Eternal City? What wonders of the ancient world did I partake of? What fabulous adventure could possibly roust me from the coolth of steady air conditioning?? You guessed it!

Hop-on, Hop-off.

I know I/we are a broken record at this point, but we are total converts to the hopping way of life. If you’re on a mission or tourism they serendipitously go exactly where you want to go. There are several different lines of these buses in Rome; I went with Green Line Tours but I’m no expert as to which are better or worse. Green Line did just fine for me, but honestly it looked like most of the stops I saw had signs indicating that several different companies stop in identical locations. Thanks to our perfectly located accommodation (good job, sweetie!) I had about a 4-minute walk to the piazza, then on to the bus and into the center of the city.

However, before you roll your eyes at John and another one of his all-bus-all-the-time posts, stay your fury! This time, I was using the HOHO as actual public transportation. After riding for a half hour or so I scooted back on to the pavements for my key destination of the day – the Capitoline Museums. I’ve been to them before but it’s been quite awhile and the place is just stuffed. Even on a second visit I’d likely see things I missed the first time (or, to be perfectly honest, forgot I saw it) and some things are worth a second look anyway, right? Especially baby Hercules. This unforgettable piece of work (on display to the left) seems to be an artist’s attempt to reconcile two different inspirations – one, that Hercules is reputed to have displayed feats of great strength when he was just a baby. And two, shouldn’t a strong person look like a big strong man? Thus the compromise: a full grown, somewhat muscular man who has been mushed together with, you know, a baby. It is unsettling, but in a way that I can’t look away when I’m anywhere near it. And to paraphrase my sister, if I have to look at it, you have to look at it.

Behold!

The strange thing is that it is a total outlier. Baby Hercules is the only “oddity” like this in the place. It is otherwise a trove of art collected by the leading lights of Rome for nearly six hundred years, starting out with a gift from Pope Sixtus IV. He wasn’t the last. The ways of the rich and powerful are inscrutable, but on an irregular schedule over the centuries a pope or other richie rich type would drop off some portion of their accumulated wealth; I’m not Catholic but I have my suspicions. In any case, that much wealth sluicing through over that much time is going to yield a heck of a museum.

After a lovely few hours tromping through the Museums I pondered getting a meal, but there are bizarrely few dining options a quick hop from the museum, and I didn’t feel like longish walk in the heat, so instead I took my trusty HOHO back to my neighborhood for a nice spot I’d spotted right around the corner from home. Ristorante Rossini doesn’t seem to have much of a web presence, although it does seem to be attached to Albergo Ottocento hotel. The restaurant had a whole submenu featuring truffles – in the risotto, in the salad, on your steak… many styles. I went for a salad (a promise to wife to not eat *only* meat and pasta on the trip) and then the truffle-sauced beef tenderloin, because who doesn’t try that once? It was one of the best pieces of beef I have ever had.

One day down, I’m feeling righteous about not just being a lump, and the next day brings the whole reason for the trip – Senor Caravaggio.

If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans. That’s what they say, right? (Don’t look it up, it’s a simultaneously deep and boring rabbit hole.) My darling bride once again hit my birthday out of the park, setting up not one but two quick getaways to places she knew I was really interested in. The first bit had been our trip to Évora, which you may already have read about. The second part was a real doozy. She’d heard me exclaim excitedly over an exhibition taking place in Rome this year; a gathering of Caravaggio masterworks from all over, congregating in the Palazzo Barberini for four months this spring and summer. Well, my bride isn’t one for idle dreams – goals and plans are more her speed. And so, along with a card announcing our Évora trip was another card explaining that we had three-ish days in Rome plotted out, with flights and lodging already sorted along with tickets to the exhibition. All that being said, do you remember how this paragraph started?

A couple of days before we were scheduled to depart, Lisa threw her back out. Nothing life-altering, but for the immediate future she would be in serious pain. Worse, the activities facing us would be exactly the sorts of things that would exacerbate the ouch – a Ryanair flight, public transit, an unfamiliar bed, and (if we were actually going to make it worth going) a fair amount of walking. It just didn’t sound feasible. It was a disappointment, sure, but life is pretty good here so if I just don’t get to Rome this time it isn’t that big of a –

“Why wouldn’t you go?” She asked. I have to admit I was surprised by the question. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we’re co-dependent, we do plenty of stuff on our own, but anything like this? This is a two-person venture if I’ve ever seen one, and Lisa and I are the two persons! She wasn’t kidding, though. The Caravggio adventure was my birthday present and she’d be darned if I didn’t get to see it just because she was incapacitated. It took me a pretty long time to get my head around it, but fundamentally there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t go. Sooooooo ok, I guess I’m going to Rome!

The trip itself was, if nothing else, confirmation that we’d made the right decision on Lisa staying home. Our Ryanair experiences haven’t been all bad whatever their reputation is, but this one was a humdinger, complete with standing-room-only holding pens where we stewed for an extra 45 minutes and a plane the image of which is printed next to “dilapidated” in Webster’s. It would have been an ordeal for somebody with severe back pain; I was fundamentally sound and I still came out of it with a limp. (I kid. Kind of.) So, what does a guy on his own do in Rome? Well for starters he goes the wrong direction on the metro and show up to his lodging at the crack of sleepy. I do like to keep myself on my toes. Still, the place was nice and comfortable and the bed served its purpose well.

Rome on my own awaited.

So, somewhere along the line, and this going back to a of couple years ago, (now almost 5!) I say aloud to my wife “I can’t get this one thought out of my mind. I don’t remember where I heard it, but somebody said ‘tomorrow is promised to no one’, and that feels so true to me.” Numerous examples exist in our life (family, friends, coworkers etc…) of people who reached a normal-ish retirement age in a state of health that’s not conducive to extensive traveling. Hell, for that matter people we know have died before ever reaching their retirement. We had already been thinking about cutting a couple years off our work time to retire early-ish, but as we talked it through, we came to agree that our plan to see Europe in our mid to late 60s suffered from an extreme case of optimism. Who knows if we’ll both be healthy in 10-15 years, or if we are then how much longer can we expect it to last? We’re only in “ok” health right now, and while we’re trying to take steps to improve that there’s no guarantee that it’s going to pay off. We could easily reach our 60s and find that we’re in no condition to do all the things we want to do. What, exactly, are we waiting for?

The answer to that question, of course, is basically “money.” I said earlier that the ability to move to Europe requires, first and foremost, the will to do it, and that’s true. The second thing it requires, though, is money. Not obscene money, but whatever number you thought you’d want to retire comfortably (or at least safely) in the United States is a reasonable starting place.

There’s actually a whole lot more to say on this subject. We’ve met people who have indeed immigrated on very modest means. You can live much more cheaply here – but you will be living much more cheaply if you take my meaning. If you’re prepared to live far from a city, in a small town or village where you can expect next-to-no English being understood, and eating a quite-simple diet, you could probably get your monthly budget to … I don’t even know. $500/month? I can find you a T0 or T1 in the sticks for +/- 200eu, utilities oughtn’t to be more than another 100, and then you’re feeding and entertaining yourself on the balance. (Note that you most likely would strongly consider having a car to succeed at this kind of lifestyle.) However simple a life that sounds, you’d at least be saved from the possibility of ruination via medical debt. So from that starting point, your available resources can push you closer to town, push you into nicer digs, push you into more restaurants, and so on and so forth. We’ll chewing on how to write more on this subject later, because we know if you’re anything like we are, this is the subject that gives you the most anxiety about potentially making the move. Hang in there.

Now where were we…

If our financial plan only works on the assumption that we’re working into our 60s, then trying to go any earlier could be super dangerous. Back to the financial advisor we went. “Kevin,” we said (for his name is Kevin; hi, Kevin!), “you know that financial plan we had worked out all nice and pretty? Wellll, what happens if we stop working sooner than we initially said?” He asks us how much sooner we’re talking about. “No no, you misunderstand. We want to know how early we can stop working and still be financially viable. You tell us.” So Kevin runs some different scenarios, and we work out our best estimates on what a monthly budget would look like, and he comes back to us and says “assuming average returns and no catastrophes, you can retire as soon as you can access your retirement accounts without penalties.” (Small clarification here: he never framed it as in “so long as there are no catastrophes” in the sense of recessions/depressions; any competently designed plan builds in some amount of risk management to get through lean times. What he meant was “so long as the basic underpinnings of the economy don’t disintegrate, like a catastrophic war, or similar.”) Great! That’s only 6-7 years away, way better than the 12 or so we were aiming for! We can almost taste the buffala mozzarella from there. We begin to shift from fantasizing to cautiously planning what retirement might look like. Do we own or rent a home? Which part of Italy do we want to live in?

A brief aside. Getting this news was actually far more emotional than I’ve described it to you. Neither Lisa nor I “come from means” as they say. Neither of us was actually dirt poor, but neither of us had a model of comfortable retirement in our lives. (This has since changed, but when we got together this was definitely true.) We had been doing what we had read we should do (fund the 401k, spend within your means, don’t try to keep up with the Joneses, etc.) but we weren’t financially literate enough to have a firm grasp of how we were doing. The moment we were told, by a professional with fiduciary responsibility towards us (that is, not trying to sell us anything, they get paid for knowledge not commissions) that we had, in fact, colored within the lines and were on track for a secure retirement, we had an intense shared moment of “we actually did it.” You tell yourself it’s going to work out, but part of living a moderate lifestyle is not having tangible feedback of financial success. And yes, greater financial literacy would have helped here. I’m not saying we’re geniuses, I’m saying this is what happened. Parents, teach your kids about money while you’re teaching them everything else; you’ve got nothing but time, right? :p

Aside over! We began to think of our future in very concrete terms of “when we move to Italy…”. What’s the rental market in Pieve al Toppo look like? How’s the grocery shopping? Ooo, which cities do we want to explore first? Do we maybe want to live in a city instead? Rome would be way too intense, and Florence looks kind of spend-y, but Siena looks like it’s in a sweet spot of culture and scenery and affordability. Yeah, that might work! Plus, we can never tell the story of accidentally driving onto the Piazza del Campo too many times, right? Do we want a car? We were excited by all the questions.

Except, soon we’re not so sure about Italy.

Vignette Um: Cover me!

Like many people, we rely on the insurance provided by our credit card when we rent cars; rental agencies typically have downright brutal rates for coverage, while it’s included in your card. (Always check first, don’t assume you have it!) As we prepared for our honeymoon back in 2012, however, there was a consistent piece of advice we were seeing in various travel forums – get the comprehensive coverage. We were nonplussed, but there was a consistent narrative that the rental agencies in Ireland (Northern or the Republic, it’s not a regional thing) will terrorize you with charges and fees, defining the mildest dings as full replacements and the like. It seemed… well, borderline racist, but even the Irish commenters would say “yes, get the coverage.” And so, we paid a few hundred extra euros for comprehensive accident/collision/meteor strike coverage of our car.

Well. Our honeymoon consisted of a deosil circuit around the edge of the country, scooting south from Dublin and poking around in numerous villages; a new one every day (not something we’d do again, but hey, live and learn). We drove a lot. And when we did it was almost exclusively on the charming back roads. In case you aren’t familiar, “charming back roads” means that two-way traffic proceeds on 1.9 lanes worth of pavement, often with thick stone walls abutting the lane under the deceptive cover of a thick carpet of greenery. Not only that, but some of the most interesting things we wanted to see were on even lesser roads, sometimes of the dirt variety. In short, we were provided ample opportunity to bang up the car and to be frank we took advantage more than once. Most notably were the scratches in the paint from all the vines and such we brushed up against; We never hit a wall but we skimmed along them plenty. Then there was the very deep pot hole that was disguised as a puddle; there’s no way that didn’t bang up something on the underneath. When we pulled into the rental return lot at the Dublin airport you could practically hear the Scrooge McDuck coin-clinking sound going off in the attendant’s mind. We produced our insurance documentation and he noticeably deflated before wishing us a bon voyage.

Get the coverage in Ireland.

Vignette Dois: Google Day-drinks

Let’s get the obligatory disclaimer out of the way: of course the internet has transformed the travel experience, usually for the better. The general reliability of services like Google Maps means, however, that its shortcomings our more noticeable. Less-populated locations, or regions with poor data connectivity, are ripe for difficulties. These troubles happen often enough on our travels that we’ve taken a “ya gotta laugh or you’ll cry” attitude, and so we simply decided that Google often drinks during the work day, perhaps on its lunch break. We have been told to walk down a canal in Venice (blub blub!). We were once sent down an increasingly narrow lane on Naxos (the Greek island) late at night, which eventually ended as the driveway to a home. This necessitated backing up, in the dark with no street lights, for about a kilometer before we could get the car turned around.

Most infamously for us, in the Italian hill town of Orvietto we were sent on a circuitous route to get to what ought to have been a straight-forward destination. We long ago gave up second-guessing the google directions because the times we’ve done it have invariably gone wrong; we were being directed away from a route we knew well because of a traffic snarl we couldn’t see. “Ha, this isn’t the way!” we would say, and then stew in traffic for an hour. No, our faith in these directions is just that – faith. We have no empirical proof that the directions are good, but it often turns out ok. Anyway, we listened to google as the little cobblestone lane got narrower … and narrower.. until finally we reached the last, left, turn that would put us on a proper avenue. However, the aperture for the turn was between two buildings that were, it turns out, 10 or so centimeters tighter than the width of our car. It was only with the jiggling of a 40-point turn and the guidance of some very friendly and helpful locals that we extricated ourselves with only modest damage to the paint of that car. Ouzo, grappa, moonshine… when google drinks, google goes hard.

Vignette Tres: I knew I should’ve taken that left turn in Albuquerque.

Once again, we’re in Italy. This is 2017, and the whole digital apparatus of our lives is far loosey-goosier. (good luck, spell check!) And so we find ourselves navigating through the city of Siena with a cached map that is meant to guide us to some of the veeeeery limited parking in the city. Ah, Siena! A beautiful, ancient city, most famous for the horse race that goes on annually, a contest between the various neighborhoods within the city. Each district has its own livery and symbols, and it is an intense point of pride to claim the prize each year. The race takes place on the piazza del campo, an expansive brick plaza for pedestrians to enjoy; it is a tradition to gather each day in fair weather to watch the light change against the buildings as the sun goes down. People sit in cafes as well as upon the campo itself.

So, we proceeded into beautiful Siena. If you’ve never been into one of these old cities, they are often warrens of twisty-turny avenues; the European aesthetic is often to prefer the retention of old buildings rather than knocking them down to allow for modern roadways. And so we are twisting and turning our way, trying to follow some tricky directions (remember, google drinks!). Fortunately the name of our parking destination begins to appear on directional signs, so we are close! Another couple of turns and it feels like we are almost there. There is an emphatic sign about the left turn we are about to take but… welp, it’s in Italian. So left we go, down a tight little lane but we can see it widens just ahead. Yep, it does.

Onto the campo.

“Oh poop” we both say (more or less). Panicked, we look around. There is absolutely no way we are going to drive across the campo, regardless of the exits that beckon from the far side. It is unlikely that la polizia will accommodate us in any case. Lisa looks to our hard-left and sees a small lane; we make a break for it. Windows down, we are waving people out of the way so we can scoot off this UNESCO World Heritage Site pronto. Y’all… this lane was so narrow and so in use it was crazy. There were cafes that had outdoor seating, and hand-to-gods with our windows down we could pick olives off of the tables. A waiter saw us, shrugged in classic Italian fashion and scooted a chair a few inches out of the way.We were like a whale swimming with dolphins, where the dolphins were the pedestrians who were supposed to be there. We honestly should have turned the engine off and kicked ourselves along like a scooter. We look back and laugh, but we were naturally mortified in the moment.

Believe it or not, despite all of this (and this really is just a sample) we still enjoy the freedom of driving through the back roads of Europe. We did it earlier this year in Scotland with pleasure, and will continue on in the future.

As has been repeatedly, perhaps exhaustingly, mentioned we didn’t really have much of an agenda for this part of our trip. It was a bit of an experiment; some of you may have seen or at least heard of the truly phenomenal itinerary books that Lisa would put together back in the old days? She may have given those up but we still like to have a good idea of what we’re doing and when. Trying to embrace the spirit of our adventurous new life, though, we’ve been getting all loose-y goose-y with our plans, and this Venice bit is the goose-iest by far, loose-y or otherwise. (honk honk) As such, from a blogging standpoint we’re kinda running out of runway, here. Our hopes for Venice were that it would be an “all vibes” experience, and that was successful beyond any of our hopes. It was a blast. But yeah, it was a blast of a hang. So we’re going to tell you a couple of stories, and share a pile of photos, and that’s the last few days of the trip all at once. Strap in!

One scheduled thing we did still have left was a “secret food tour,” AKA “a tour of publicly available food but we tell you nice stories along the way.” What’s nice about things like this in a city you don’t know is it’s at least a twofer, maybe even a threefer if you’re prepared to say something so silly out loud. First is the food (such as the delightful pastries in the photo to the left). But second, you get walked on a path you most likely haven’t been on, even if you know some of the stops along the way. The local guide will know how to get you places that will fill in some of the fog-of-war on your map (sorry, non-nerds). Sure enough, we took a nicely circuitous route that looped through the Jewish Ghetto for a delicate little pastry before walking through to get to the next stop.

Ok, quick aside (which, yes, could be another name for this whole blog). The Jewish Ghetto in Venice has books written about it. Even I know my limits when it comes to pithy summaries, and that particular dog is sitting very quietly on its bed with its head on its paws. Even it knows. So, yeah. Jewish Ghetto. Look it up. Although, naturally I can’t completely shut up. The picture on the top of this post is from in front of a kindergarten in the Ghetto. Remember, there’s no cars in Venice. It’s an incredibly flat, relatively quiet and safe place. So, there is a parking lot for the kids’ scooters in front of the building!! Adorable doesn’t begin to cover it.

Most of the “secret food” in question is what they call “cicchetti”, which really boils down to finger foods. It’s all over the town, in the bars and cafes and… cicchetterias? I dunno… but if you’re ever there and you see places with a lot of what look like open-face sandwiched with exotic combinations of ingredients, you’re right, that’s exactly what they are. Try a few, they’re cheap. We had several nummies in a few different places; it was an afternoon well spent. We swung back through the Ghetto later because they had some beautiful examples of the fusion of two cultures – Venetian blown-glass mezzuzahs. We picked up a few as gifts and called that a day.

Normally, neither of us is much of a shopper; we don’t go to the mall as a recreational sport, and we don’t usually get attracted to fancy displays. Maybe because you walk through all the narrow streets of Venice and so many of them are lined with shops, however, we actually got a kick out of poking our noses into what was on offer. And that was our downfall in St. Marks’ Square, where we stumbled into a shop with reasonable(-ish) scarves. Turns out we both had been nursing desires for a scarf without quite realizing it, and we both ended up walking out with a double-handful of them(!). This is not an entirely unhappy occasion, but both of us looked like those cows who get stunned right before their date with destiny; completely disoriented and a bit wobbly. Only, you know, alive and with lots of pretty scarves.

And seriously, that’s it. We ate well, but mostly in simpler, trattoria and similar style joints. Our travel back was relatively painless, which we’re grateful for because that rarely happens these days.

Our agenda for this trip to Venice may have been light but it wasn’t actually empty. True, our plan for the day was to wander about and see the splendors of Carnivale, but we figured we might as well have directions to wander in rather than just licking our thumbs and seeing which way the wind was blowing. To that end, we had a plan for an early lunch, then the Galleria Accademia (more or less an art gallery) before bouncing towards Ground Zero, aka Piazza San Marco. (Why do some places get names in Italian, while others are translated? Chi puo ‘dirlo?) Not a heavy itinerary but in all likelihood a good one.

We can occasionally be guilty of burying the lede, so let’s start off with the biggest news: the Galleria Accademia had two, count ’em two, Judiths! It’s always exciting when… hang on… Lisa just asked me if our readers already know why we care about the story of Judith and Holofernes. “Of course they do!”, I replied, but the worm of doubt started nibbling away and I hit the search function. Sure enough, while we’ve mentioned it a couple of times, we have yet to provide any context for our Judith love. Welp, high time we fix that!

The story of Judith, in very broad strokes, describes the Jewish widow Judith, who saves Israel from invasion by ingratiating herself to the Assyrian general Holofernes. Holding some measure of trust in the Assyrian camp, she is able to gain access to his tent one night when he lay sleeping and inebriated. She decapitates him and then returns to her people, displaying his head as proof of the deed. The Assyrian army, leaderless, disperses and Israel is saved. (Don’t peer at the details to closely, that’s not the point right now.) This story has been a popular one for artists to depict for many hundreds of years. Frequently, the image presented will be of Judith in the act of sawing Holofernes’ head off, with a maid waiting with a sack to hold the royal noggin. If you’re wondering if you’ve found a Judith in the wild, the clues to look for are: woman with sword, woman probably dressed as a peasant or servant and holding a sack, a man passed out in bed, maybe a man missing a head, a woman holding a head, or a servant holding a sack with a head in it. There are many variants, and you may need to eliminate Salome with the head of John the Baptist as a source for the painting you’re looking at (in that case there will be a woman and a head, but typically the head is long-since removed from a body and the woman has nothing to do with physically removing the sainted pate, which may or may not be resting on a plate. A pate plate. heh.)

Ok, so that’s what “a Judith” is, but why do we care especially? Set the wayback machine to 2014. The place: Florence. We are still developing what our idea of a good trip is, but we know we’re enjoying art museums a whole lot and we’re trying to educate ourselves more about art in general. We participated in a Context tour of the Uffizi Galleries; this is not what you’d call the “budget option” but Context tours have in our experience been uniformly excellent so we occasionally treat ourselves. This Uffizi tour was particularly fine; the guide did an excellent job of using our time to highlight some true wonders of the art world while also “footnoting” (so to speak) other locations in the museum that we wouldn’t have get to but would be worth our exploring on our own time. It was in one of these interstitial moments, passing between treasures, that we slipped past Artemesia Gentileschi’s “Judith Slaying Holofernes” and were just gobsmacked. (Full disclosure: we are not in complete agreement as to which Judith is the first we actually saw. That’s fine, disagreement is a part of life’s rich tapestry.) There’s a whole other rabbit hole we could go down about Artemesia (a rare female artist of note from the 1600s whose name and reputation has been preserved) and the feminist underpinnings of this painting, but even keeping it at the 10,000′ view the Judith representations stand out as rare cases of a woman in control of her situation in this (or basically any? woo patriarchy) era. When you go to a lot of museums and see a lot of Jesuses and Jesus-related art, and the women are almost always either trophies to be won or temptresses to be scorned, a strong woman getting #*&@ done really stands out.

Also, there’s an old trope that gets explained in a lot of different ways, but basically – you know how you never see bears anywhere, but then somebody points out a bear in a picture or an advertisement or whatever, and suddenly all you see anywhere are bears? Judith has been like that; once we cottoned to her, she’s surprisingly popular. And so, as a little game that we play just between ourselves, finding a Judith becomes kind of like a drinking game. We don’t go looking for Judiths, but when we find them we get excited, and if we are separated we run to find the other. It’s fun, and they’re almost always really good portrayals.

Good lord, so where was I? RIGHT. We went to the Galleria Accademia in Venice, which is a lovely building, typically very old (it dates from 1756) but refurbished and added on to fairly recently. They highlight work done in Venice and have an extensive collection of Hieronymus Bosch which was, I think, our first chance to put our noses up close to his work; it’s as weird as everybody says. Then again, there was a preponderance of floating baby heads in this collection (Check the image at the top of this post; pretty sure it’s a medieval/renaissance depiction of cherubim, but still…) so Bosch felt right at home.

It was towards the end of our visit to the Galleria when we got into the new-built portion of the museum, and it seemed this is there the collection branched out from work that would have been purpose-made for religious display (e.g. in a church or cathedral) and that’s when Judith appeared. We almost passed by both of them without catching what they were. Believe it or not, the first one shown here is relatively subtle for a Judith painting, what with the head being neatly detached, the sword not being soaked in blood, and Judith herself being pretty calm about the whole thing. The second Judith, by Guilia Lama, we really didn’t catch was her until we read the card under the painting; as far as either of us can remember this is as easy as Holofernes has ever gotten off in one of these paintings; apparently she (Judith) is still checking in with the big ‘G’ to make sure that this is all copacetic.

Contented with the museum, we spent the rest of the day strolling the warrens of the city, bumping into innumerable clusters of lavishly costumed folk. Our meals this day were pleasant but unmemorable, and recalling the details doesn’t feel justified after the novel you were just presented with. Our next day was even more casual, so we’ll be sure to inundate you with costumes, shopping, and food next time.

Our visit in Rome was one of the most fluid/flexible itineraries we’ve ever traveled on but, logistically speaking, Venice made that look like the Normandy invasion. We arrived in good health and the prospects of an excellent weather forecast, and that checked off (almost) the only boxes we really had. There’s plenty to do and see in Venice, of course, but our lingering memories of our first visit always boiled down to the mood and atmosphere of just being there, and that’s what we were hoping to find again. Happily, we did! Sure, it can feel like it’s slowly devolving into a parody of the Venetian casino in Las Vegas but that day is still a long way off. Venice is tranquil and beautiful and a little bit shabby and lords do we love it.

Now, we said we had checked off “almost” all the boxes of our itinerary as soon as we arrived, but there actually was one bit of business to attend to. After our increasingly-typical late morning alarm, we snuck (sneaked? snookered? satchmo?) down for a light brekkies and then headed out into the city. Item one for the day was lunch, which is why we kept breakfast on the light side.

Lunch was just around the corner (relatively speaking, it is Venice after all) at the Ristorante Algi Alboretti (which we picked by rating and location). This is a small restaurant that does “classic” Italian dishes very well and did not cost an arm and a leg, despite it’s excellent location. Lisa had their “signature” Tagliolini scampi and zucchini, which was superb. The pasta was tender, the shrimp sweet and the zucchini was just the right balancer. John had the gnocchi with a ragu of beef and pork in a deeply flavorful tomato sauce. Our meal (along with coperto[x2], water, glass of wine, soda) came to 56eu. Although we sat inside, there is a nice patio area in front and in back, which would be perfect for hotter weather.

Lunch achieved, we moved on to the second of our two agenda items for the day. When we last visited Venice (for real, because we’re ignoring October ’22, and we’ll stop saying that now) in 2014 we bought masks. They were amazing and provided a dramatic visual for the one costume party we attended at Halloween that year. The thing is, while Lisa went for a classic “if bank robbers were also rave kids” look, John fell in love with a truly massive affair with curling horns that gave the mask a meter-wide wing span. After the big purge of all we owned in the run-up to our relocation, Lisa still had her leather half mask but John jettisoned his, wanting something smaller and less dramatic… well, smaller. What else could we do but return to the same shop? No problem to find, not that we recognized the neighborhood or anything, but we felt like we were getting a sense of the city, enough to feel oriented as we navigated.

First good thing: the shop was still there. In we walk, and a woman looks up from the piece she is working on and says, “I recognize that mask. I made it, back in . . . 2014 I think?” BAM! Let me tell you, if an artisan remembers a piece almost ten years later you know you are working with a true crafts-person. We get to talking and it turns out that she’s taken over the shop after the original owner — her father — retired. She’s still making masks, and contracts out with a small group of other artists to make different designs, and she no longer works in leather. (Our hearts fell a bit.) But! she says, “I do have a few left, maybe one of them would work for you?” And, there it was, the perfect mask for John. Mission accomplished and we highly recommend the authentically handmade work of Sofia and her artists at Alberto Sarria Masks!

With that we donned our masks and wandered the city, enjoying the costumes and window shopping.

Dinner that evening was at Trattoria Nono Risorto. This is a typical Venetian osteria — no frills, no fussy food, and the language you hear is local. We shared a meat and cheese plate, then Lisa had the grilled branzino and John a pizza. The fish was gorgeously grilled with a little olive oil and lemon, a simple preparation that allows truly fresh fish to shine. The pizza was excellent as well, although too large for one.

Neither of us are scientists, but we’re pretty sure that any data collected along the lines of “what do you think of when you think about travel in Europe?” would show that train travel is at the top of the list. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s typically pretty cheap and it’s super efficient. Sure, airplanes travel faster than trains, who’s going to argue that? On the other hand, airports tend to be on the outskirts of a city or maybe in a different city entirely (hello, London, Chicago, New York etc….), whereas train stations are usually deep in the center of town. Many is the time we have walked into a train station, straight to the platform and on to the train; you can’t even come up with a cute analogy for what happens in airports or how long it takes. And at the end of the journey, you just walk off the train. Most times you can be on the curb and hailing a cab within two minutes, and the cab ride probably isn’t all that long because, again, you are in the center of town. We love it. And so, this day starting off with a train from Rome to Venice was a pleasure.

Italy’s main train line, Trenitalia, is well-organized, efficient, on-time, and affordable. In the past we sprang for 1st class/ tier tickets on the long route between Rome and Venice, but this time decided to go “tourist” aka 2nd class. (The tier names change from time to time.) It was perfect. Aside from the fact that you can’t choose the direction that your seats face relative to travel (towards or away) you have the option to book in a 2-seater or share a table with others and which side of the car you prefer (close to the bathroom or doors may make a difference for you). It’s all fairly clear on their website. And the earlier you book, the better the fare. One small warning – when they say “non-refundable” they totes mean it. Twice now since we have moved to Europe we’ve had a hiccup in our travel that necessitated a change. Twice, Trentitalia agents have expressed what seemed to be genuine sympathy and did (*#&@-all about changing our tickets. Fair’s fair, it said so on the ticket but still, be aware.

There are luggage racks at the entrance for larger pieces, and overhead racks for backpacks, duffel and shopping bags, and carry-on sized roller bags. On a very crowded train people put their large pieces in the aisle, making for a crowded feeling. Longer trains often have a cafe or bar car selling simple sandwiches, snacks, drinks and, of course, cafe. It’s all very clean, and generally quiet.

Our arrival in Venice tickled us, because while we had been to Venice a couple times already we’d always been either in a rush, or sick, or in the dark, or a combination of those things. This was the first time we got to walk out of the train station and just take in the city, in the sunshine, with nowhere to be. It was lovely. We’ll probably spend a lot of time in the next few blog posts trying to explain what is so great about Venice, but it really boils down to a variant of “the Braga effect” that we’ve described before. The water and the boats and the lack of cars and the peculiar architecture all go into the stew of the city, and either the flavor knocks your socks off or it doesn’t. For us? Sock-free all day, baybeee.

Due to reasons (long story but uninteresting, and if you think about some of the stories we’ve bothered to write down in the past you should know how seriously we mean this) we were staying in an actual hotel, not tucked in the armpit but actually in a nice central location. The Hotel Ai Reali is a lovely place just a few minutes walk from the Rialto Bridge and also St. Mark’s Square. One thing we’re starting to get through our skulls is that hotels in major European cities are prepared to charge you quite a lot of money for quite small rooms. I suppose the logic is that this is how they built places hundreds of years ago and … well, tough nuggets. It happened to us in Dublin and it happened to us here. Lovely place, great service, good breakfast, but ye gods and little fishes the room was petite. All in all though, they still get a modest thumbs up for overall value proposition.

Our dinner that evening was a bit of a celebration, a place we’d intended to enjoy back in October: Do Fiorni. In its present form, the restaurant dates from the ’70s, but it has been a favorite of Venetians and visitors for centuries, going back to the early days of the Venetian Republic when it started life as a bakery. This vast space covers nearly a block, but still seems intimate because of its many rooms. The menu presents traditional Venetian cuisine and includes numerous dishes highlighting seafood, which comes directly from the lagoon and the Adriatic Sea.

We chose it because it was entirely furnished to look like a British Pullman.

Right down to the luggage racks! (We sat in the table to the right of the door, which was never opened. Quite cozy.) Layers of linens, heavy eating utensils, an extensive menu . . . it was lovely.

Even better, the food was excellent. However, as a testament to how tired we were after a long day of traveling and re-orienting ourselves in a new city, we cannot for the lives of us remember exactly what we ate. In fact, we have cleared memories of the people that we were sitting next to, a father-daughter or May-December situation where they both stayed on their cell phones for a wildly inappropriate portion of the night, and who must have dropped a hefty check given the number of individual cocktails we saw delivered over the course of the evening. Yowza. But the food itself? Total blank.

It’s the fifth day of our trip and you know what that means, right? Right? …. c’mon, at least guess? Fine, be that way. It’s laundry day! Long ago we decided that we would rather do laundry occasionally rather than haul large pieces of luggage over uncertain terrain. Actually, “long ago” makes it sound vaguely in the past. There’s nothing vague about it. It was December 30th, 2008, late in the evening, in Paris, France. We came up out of the subway stop, having used the train to get in to the city from the airport. It was freezing cold, slushy if not outright snowy, and we each had a giant duffel bag – they were so big that they had wheels and a retracting handle just like a classic roller bag. Just, you know, giant duffel size. We rolled those damned things over cobblestones, through the darkness, for what felt like an hour. And then and there, we swore we would do anything we could to avoid big luggage. It’s always a work in progress, but we try. So, anyway. Laundry day!

I mean, it’s not only laundry day. It didn’t take more than an hour to drop off the laundry, round trip, and wouldn’t have taken that long if google wasn’t drunk. Have we told you that google day-drinks? Stories for another time, probably. The pace of the day (i.e. we sleep in blessedly late right now) meant that after laundry the next order of business was lunch; hubba hubba.

We had a reservation at Casa Bleve, which Lisa had found on one of the many blogs she peruses during her travel research phase. Billed as a refined restaurant, the big draw for us (other than the food) was that it was in a 16th-century palazzo. It didn’t disappoint, providing not only excellent food in gorgeous surroundings, but fantastic people-watching all throughout our meal.

Overall, Casa Bleve’s menu is Italian, but they bring an interesting flavor profile that elevates every dish. We shared the burrata starter (of course it’s on the menu, right?). Here they source it from Puglia (instead of down the coast) and serve it with a fruit compote. Rich flavors, perfectly balanced. We practically licked the plate it was so good. That said, we were drawn to (but passed on) the roasted (sweet) red peppers are rolled with a pate made of tuna, anchovies, and capers. Other options were the catch of the day fish offered both as carpaccio and tartare and sea anchovies offered with sweet butter and toasted bread.

We then shared the tonnarello pasta with artichokes, pork cheek bacon, and Pecorino cheese. This dish was exquisitely prepared and perfectly delicious, the pasta having the perfect “bite” to it with a slight earthy umami from the artichoke offsetting the intense flavor of the bacon and cheese.

Our mains were the fish of the day with yellow tomatoes for John, and braised beef cheek with mashed potatoes for me. My beef cheek was meltingly tender and rich; his fish was perfectly cooked and the tomatoes were roasted just a bit, bringing out the best of their flavor here in the off season. We had just enough room to split a dessert of Millefeuille with vanilla cream and berries. The meal (appetizer, pasta, 2 mains, dessert, several bottles of water, bread service, and a bottle of wine) came to 151eu.

After lunch, we had a vague agenda of finding the reputed leather goods district of Rome, with a plan to meander there and catch random sights. In this case, the random sight to see was the Pantheon, which is a beautiful building just on the outside – which is good, because we realized we were a little low energy so we didn’t fight the crowds to go inside. Instead we made it to the “leather goods district” which, if we’re being honest (and why wouldn’t we?) was a huge disappointment. Maybe covid smacked the place around or something, but there were maybe four shops, three of which were clearly just reselling commercial merchandise; only one of them had any pretense of crafting their goods locally. We made a desultory purchase of a coin purse – brighter and bigger than John’s last two, so here’s hoping he doesn’t lose this one(!) – and then made our way back to our hotel. (For your reference, this is the article that led to us thinking it was such a great place. It’s not.) In our opinion, Massimmo’s in Florence is a MUCH MUCH better collection of leather, produced in Italy, with fantastic prices. (Here’s a link to the day we spent there.)

With our big fancy lunch we just made do with light snackage for dinner. John scooted back to the laundromat to get our suitcase full of clean clothes, and we got ourselves packed up for our travel day tomorrow. We wanted to hit the ground running in Venice, so we got ourselves all prepped and turned in for a good night’s sleep. Venice awaits!