Dateline France--Report 20
28 May 1990

This report covers our trip to Italy, where I attended the Extending
Database Technology conference in Venice.  We took the kids out of
school to go, which was no big deal for Sarah, and meant mounds of
homework for Luke on return, rather than the usual piles.

We went down by overnight train, getting couchettes for everyone.  (If
you ever plan to do a lot of train travel in France with a child, look
into a Carte Kiwi, which gives 50% off the fares of up to 4 adults
traveling with the child.  Or Sarah would probably be glad to go along
for the ride, if you split the savings with her.)  We woke up north
of Pisa, and saw miles and miles of marble dealers along the tracks.
Catching glimpses of the stations as we passed through, I think this was
around the cities of Sotto Passagio, Uschita and Binario.  We stopped in
Pisa to change trains to Florence, where we three days.  We stayed in the
pensione where some scenes of "A Room with a View" were filmed.  We had
a spiral staircase down to our bathroom.  We didn't get the room with the
view.

Kaye has lived in Florence at several times in her past, hence could get
us virtually anywhere without a map.  We started at the Uffizi gallery,
which we had skipped the last time we were in Florence because of a "work
to rules" action in which the guards were only letting something like
160 people be in the whole museum.  This seemed to be school vacation
time in Italy, and there were lots of school groups in the museum.  A
group of teenage Italian girls made an big fuss over Sarah, talking to
her in both English and French.  They seemed attracted by her blond hair
and fair skin.  (Both our kids got many pats and strokes on the head while
in Italy.  Dave DeWitt's daughter Lizzy, who is also blond, had similar
experiences.  But the Italians just seemed in general friendly towards kids
than the (northern) French.)  I liked all the Boticelli's, including the
recently restored "Venus on the Half-Shell."  The museum seems to have
been doing a lot of restoration work, and had paintings labeled with the
date of the most recent restoration.  (There was also a small exhibit at
the entrance to the museum about a recently restored painting on display,
showing how they had used various scientific techniques to discover the
original figures under previous restoration work.)  Luke was interested
in various paintings of Medusa we saw.

That night we made a trip to Vivoli's for gelato (Italian ice cream).
About 40 flavors, including probably 5 or 6 variations on chocolate:
mousse, white chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate amaretto, chocolate
mint, and so on.  It's very rich, so you eat it from tiny cups.  Even so,
it's perfectly acceptable to ask for two or three flavors in your cup.
(In fact, the guy behind the counter looked at me weird when I just wanted
one flavor.)  Vivoli's is our nomination for the world's best ice cream.
(Although any Parisian will dispute this, claiming Berthillon has that
distinction, but Kaye has tried both and says it's no contest.)

For breakfasts, we usually took the kids to a bar.  Bars in Italy have
a much different ambiance than French ones.  Bars in Italy are much more
a family place.  Most of them have a good selection of pastries in the
morning, which are reasonably priced if you stand to eat them.  In the
afternoon, you get all kinds of wonderful sandwiches at them.

Next stop was the Or S. Michele, a square church with an ornately carved
altar.  Like many churches in Italy, there is a box you can plug money
into in order to get more lighting on the altar and ceiling.  This
church was built by a guild, and the upper floors served as a granary.
Around the outside are statues by many different sculptors, the results
of a competition during the construction.  From there we went to see
the Medici tombs.  The Medici coat of arms is plastered everywhere in
Florence; they having footed the bill for many of the palaces, cloisters
and churches there.  It consists of balls on a plain background, and exists
in 6, 7 and 8 ball versions (more balls added by later generations?).  Also,
after the Medicis married into the French royal family, the topmost ball
became blue with three gold Fleur-de-Lys on it.  The tombs are entered
through the crypt.  There are two main rooms.  One is an enormous chapel
with marble and other stone covering just about every surface.  I was
awed by this room.  A lot of fancy stone inlay work that reminded me
of the floors of the cathedrals in Malta.  (This is likely not a coincidence:
The Knights of Malta sent local artisans to Italy to be trained.)
The room is roughly square, with a huge tomb set into each wall.  The
second room is smaller.  This is the room where you are supposed to
be awed, because of the statuary by Michaelangelo on the tombs.  But
I am not swayed.  These figures in these particular statues seemed
ill-proportioned and contorted to me.

Of course, you can't be in Florence and not see the Duomo--the cathedral
of St. Maria de (di?) Fiori.  This mediaeval church is the third largest
in the world, after St. Peter's in Rome (baroque) and St. Paul's in London
(Gothic).  Inside it seems much smaller than those two, probably because
of the giant columns and proportions inside are deceiving.  There is
a wonderful sacristry off to one side, done completely in inlaid wood.
It seemed quite dark inside by comparison to other churches we visited,
the windows being small.  (Generally, I found that most Italian churches
had very little stained glass, unlike France, but usually more frescos.)
The outside is architecturally simple, but with an elaborate pattern
given by the use of green, white and red marble.  One thing that is striking
is what good shape the exterior is in.  My guess is that the marble is
more durable than the limestone used elsewhere.  Adjacent the Duomo are
the Campanile (bell tower) and Baptistry, both with the same exterior
treatment.  The dome of the baptistry is covered with wonderful mosaics
inside.  There is a smaller church in Florence, Santa Croce, that also
has a facade of green, white and red marble.

Inlaid stone jewelry is a specialty of Florence, and we spent a while
in the jewelry stores on the Ponte Vecchio (old bridge) while Kaye found
just the right piece.  The kids had fun looking at the silver miniatures
of everything you could imagine: shoes, clarinets, bicycles, even an
ice cream cart with tiny silver cones.  I had fun watching a push-cart
vendor watering the sidewalk in front of where his cart was set up, to
prevent people from sitting in front of it and blocking potential customers.

We didn't visit the Palazzo Vecchio (which hold the town hall) other than
to stop in for a minute and look around the courtyard.  The walls of
the courtyard are covered with frescos, but not in terrific shape, because
of exposure to outside air.  We did spend some time in the cloisters at
San Marco.  On the lower floor, there are paintings and architectural
elements from other buildings on display.  Upstairs is a simple but elegant
hall with illuminated manuscripts on display.  Also upstairs are the
cloisters themselves, in which Fra Angelico painted frescos of biblical
scenes.  The Medicis supported this monastery, and Cosimo di Medici had
a cell there (a little bigger than all the others, I might add).  

Obviously, we had to take the kids to the Academia to see Michaelangelo's
David.  There are also some paintings here, and a bunch of unfinished
sculptures that Michaelangelo started for some Pope's tomb.  (The effect
of partial figures emerging from stone was used intentionally by Rodin,
and I am wondering if Michaelangelo's work influenced him.)  One wing
of the museum with lots more sculpture was closed that day.  We ran into
Dave and Julie DeWitt & girls there.  We knew we were going to be in town
at the same time, but the meeting at the Academia was unplanned.  We arranged
to go to dinner together, after which we showed them how to get to Vivoli's.

Sunday afternoon we hiked up the hill the church of San Miniato, from which
you can get a panoramic view of the city.  (Also from which you can buy
liquors that the monks make.  Beware of anything classified as a
"digestive".  The principle of them is that they taste so dreadful that
anything that came before them will seem easy to stomach by comparison.)
This church has ornately painted beams and a number of frescos.  It was
built between the 11th and 13th centuries.  Right near the church, also
up on the hill, is the Piazzale Michaelangelo.  There is a long terrace, and
in the center is a bronze reproduction of David and some of the statues
from the Medici tombs.  On the terrace is half of Florence, out for a
Sunday walk.  It seems to be the place to be if you are 17 years old.
We took a different way down, which lead by some of the old city walls and
a watchtower.

One day we happened on a festival in the square outside the Hospital of
the Innocents.  This was the foundling home, and has white-on-blue
terracotta medallions of babies along the outside.  Many vendors were
selling candy, including filbert, sunflower seed and pine nut brittles.
Some had machines that made small, anise-flavored wafers by the 100's.
We bought a bag of those.  The other popular speciality was sandwiches
made of slices of whole roast pig.  I liked the sandwich, but it took
Kaye about ten minutes to get them to charge us the right price.

The last morning I took the kids to the History of Science Museum.  We
saw some of Galileo's telescopes, an enormous orrery (3 meters high) and
lots of old optical instruments and thermometers.  Many of the thermometers
worked by have several balls of different specific gravities, which would
then sink or float depending on the density of the surrounding liquid,
which in turn depends on the temperature.  One such thermometer was in
the shape of a small animal that could be placed into the mouth of a
patient.  The second floor of the museum was closed.  It contains
exhibits on the history of medicine, among other things.

Kaye saw several more places than I did.  She never tires when we are
travelling.  Standard operating procedure in the late afternoon is for
me to stay with the kids at the hotel, while Kaye goes out for a walk and
scopes out a place for dinner.  Many mornings she also gets up early and
goes out to see the sights while one or more of the rest of us are still
asleep.

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We took the train up to Venice, me sitting on a jump seat in the corridor
part of the way.  We took the vaporetto (steamer, literally, but actually
diesel now) along the Grand Canal to our hotel.  Along the way I saw a
plaque for the house where Lord Byron lived.  Just as we stepped off
the boat, we ran into Arne and Marianne Berre.  Arne's quip: "Well, I
had just about given up waiting for you."  They helped us take our bags
to the hotel.  Sarah adores Marianne, and proclaimed her as "second
mom" for the week.  (This did not transitively extend into "second wife"
priviledges for me, however...)  Kaye, Marianne and the kids did a lot
of their touring together while Arne and I were at the conference.  The
conference itself was on another island, at the Cini Foundation, which
had restored a church and monastery there.  I was kept busy, teaching
a tutorial, organizing one panel, and being on another.  I had also been
on the program committee.

I visited the cathedral of San Marco, once on my own, and once with the
kids.  I think the cathedral contains relics of St. Mark the Evangelist,
captured from some infidels.  Again, no stained glass, but the windows
were leaded in a pattern of close-packed circles.  The windows are high
up and small, making the church quite dark.  Beautiful mosaics on
the ceilings.  I paid to see the treasury, which was largely composed of
treasures stolen from Constantinople.  (I think the church itself contains
pieces brought from there as well.)  I liked the vases carved from agate
the best.  There is a large golden altar screen, with the interesting side
facing back from the altar.  You have to pay to see that as well.  It
is covered with icons and precious stones, and the kids were impressed.
There is a lot of colored stone used in the church, and the floors are all
covered with 3-D looking patterns done in stone.   

One afternoon I ducked out of the conference, and we went to see the
Peggy Guggenheim collection, which is a wonderful sampler of 20th century
modern art.  She seemed to have at least one of everything: Pollack, Arp,
Brancusi, Picasso, Dali, Max Ernst (her husband for a while?), Magritte,
and on and on.  I spent a lot of time looking at the Joseph Cornell boxes.
I was reading in the museum catalog about them.  It turns out there is one
more, not on display, which apparently lost a piece.  Peggy tried to
fix it, but Cornell disclaimed the result.

One night Kaye and I managed to find a restaurant in which we had eaten
12 years earlier.  It is still a lively place, and they pack you into
tables however you will fit.  We ended up sitting by one of the students
I had for the tutorial I taught, and a sculptor from New Zealand come to
Venice to refresh his idea bank.  One of the charms of having a wife who
is a food writer is watching her eat off of other peoples' plates.  Luke
ordered fish most of the time; Sarah decided gnocchi was her favorite.

By the ruse of springing it on me suddenly, Kaye got me up the Campanile
(bell tower) at San Marco.  It is a great view.  I found out there is
a workmen's shack on the roof of the cathedral San Marco.  The tower
collapsed in 1902, but was reconstructed with the original base and
bells.  An engineering study shortly before the collapse revealed that
the mortar had been substantially weakened by tourists pissing on it.
For the want of a urinal, the tower was lost...

Another family visit was to the Doges Palace.  The Doge was the ruler
of Venice in its heyday.  Lots of ornate rooms, one containing one of
the largest paintings in the world.  The "Bridge of Sighs" is part of the
building, connecting the justice courts with the jail.  Several rooms
had clocks, no two alike.  Some were 24-hour clocks, but noon was never
in the same place twice.  One showed the current astrological sign, as
well as the time.  I had hoped to see the armory, but it was closed
for restoration.

The last day, I took the kids to an aquarium in the morning.  Nothing
spectacular, but we had a good time hunting for a species of fish that
could make itself the same color as the gravel at the bottom of the tanks.
We met up with Kaye later to see a retrospective on Andy Warhol.  It
was in a snooty museum that demanded that wouldn't even let Kaye take her
purse through the exhibit.  The kids liked some of his videos, and also
mylar pillows filled with helium that covered the ceiling in one room.
On the ground floor was a room full of PCs connected to optical disks on
which you could call up images and explanations of Warhol's work.  (Does
anyone remember who it was who tried to kill him?)

The next to last day in Venice, we heard news of a train strike scheduled
for 9pm the next night.  Our tickets were for 7pm, but we were still going
to be in Italy at 9.  The strike didn't affect our train, in the end.  A
car full of Italian high school students on the way to Paris did.  They
were playing tapes at top volume until past midnight, when Kaye finally
complained to one of their professors.  The racket started up again between
5 and 6 in the morning, with shouting and running in the corridor.  I'm
not sure how we were so lucky as to have our couchette right in the middle
of theirs.

The last event of the conference was the "Ombra Longa" or "long shadow".
The name comes from the shadow of the bell tower in the square of San Marco.
The idea was to have a drink in the shade at each cafe, as the shadow made
its way around the square.  For us, it was a stroll through Venice with
musicians in period costumes.  We stopped at 4 or 5 bars during the evening,
trying some wine and food specialities at each.  The joke was that they
gave you a lot of wine at the first one, then just took you around the block
to the same bar three more times.  Sarah was true to the adage, "When in
Rome, be a Roman Candle."  She danced to the music unflaggingly the whole
night, building up a substantial fan club by the end of the night.  (Luke
contented himself with talking software with Dennis Tsichritzis.)

Observations:

Sarah's new word on the trip was "disgusting", usually pronounced without
the `d'.  It applied to a lot of the crawly and slithery things at the
fish market.

As in France, one sees kissing couples everywhere.  To compare styles, I
would say that in France, the lips do most of the work, whereas in Italy
the lips are more static and the hands move around a lot.

I think the kids' favorite activity in Venice was feeding the pigeons by
San Marco.  You can buy bags of corn sold by old ladies there to feed them,
and they are very tame, landing on your arm or head to get fed.  The best
activity is in the morning, when they are still a bit hungry.  By late
afternoon, most of them are sated, and it's harder to get a big crowd.
Sarah has decided to marry a pigeon from Venice.