sybarites

Things I Never Expected To Do or See; Volume II:

• watch a man carefully place his Pomeranian on top of a station turnstyle in order to feed it from his hands (Florence);
• see a police force mobilized by segways (Florence);
• see a woman train her dog to panhandle by getting it to ‘beg’ over a small bucket of change (Paris);
• darn a hole in a pair of socks for which I paid a dollar;
• run, so as not to miss Act I of the opera in Vienna;
• stay in a room with a balcony over a canal in Venice;

• drink, for lack of anything else, cheap, warm vodka and water;
• ride on 13 different metro systems in 13 cities;
• invent a form of cribbage board using ribbon and safety pins;
• see human skulls and femurs arranged to form an attractive rainbow pattern (catacombs in Paris);
• take this picture;

• play a game of cards where the loser has to wash the winner’s socks by hand;
• eat Italian food in Korea and Korean food in Italy.

We have been making gluttons of ourselves with the Hungarian repasts. On the night of our arrival, the fellow working the reception desk at our pension recommended a place that makes good Hungarian food for a reasonable price and is within walking distance: the only three criteria we had for our supper. (Actually, we would’ve broken down and eaten almost anything at that point – even KFC! – as we were starving and tired and much too sober.)

The recommended place, Thokoy Etterem, was fantastic. We don’t have pictures of the goulash and cabbage rolls but imagine both served under generous portions of sour cream and you can imagine how pleased we were with the meal (dodged that KFC bullet). Also, a trio of musicians played traditional Hungarian music as we ate, until the fiddler noticed that I was listening and then came over to our table to serenade us with old Beatles tunes.

The following morning, we headed straight for a coffee house recommended by our guidebook as “a classic”. Apparently, idealist types in the nineteenth century used to meet to discuss politics in the coffee houses of Budapest and, often, a revolutionary movement would be named after the coffee house in which the principle discussions were held. We went to Gerbaud’s to have sachertorte, fruit torte and bitter, little coffees. (I don’t know of any ‘Gerbaud’ movement…)

Shortly thereafter, we met with The Largest Meals We Have Ever Been Served at a pub on the Pest side of the Danube that we entered just moments before it started pouring rain. Because pub food tastes better when it is cold outside, we each ordered a heavy meal: smoked-meat-stuffed schnitzel for me; liver-stuffed schnitzel for Marc. Add a couple pounds of potatoes and a half kilo of rice to the table, plus two cups of cabbage salad and a liter of beer, and we have our lunch.

Plus a digestif of Unicum, a black, spicy, Hungarian liquor which started being produced again in the country in 1989.On top of all the food in my belly, it was potent enough to take my breath away and lovely enough to think about ordering a second.

Limoncello is a liqueur tasting like lemon meringue pie, but at 30% alcohol, it’s more potent than the average liquor. The first I heard of it was from two friends who had returned from Italy with a gift and a disturbing story.

Renée was studying drama in a small hill town, near where they make limoncello. Michel had gone to visit her before returning to Canada. One night they went out for dinner and drank a bottle of the local specialty. The next day they awoke to find him covered with cuts and bruises, without any recollection of events after the restaurant. While wandering around town they met a fellow who, in a very concerned tone, inquired into his health. It turned out Michel had fallen down a flight of stairs and this fellow had carried him to their hotel. They recalled none of this.

A bottle of limoncello was then gifted to our mutual friend, Danny, along with this story. It sat on top of his fridge for many months. I would frequently look up at the tall tapering bottle with fear and curiosity. Danny said he was saving it for a special occasion, but I think he may have been afraid of it too. It may sit there to this day.

After weeks of trying to book a romantic hotel using my Visa points, we gave up and booked one of the cheapest places we could find on HostelWorld—twin beds with a shared bathroom. It turned out quite well. Although the room is a little institutional, twin beds can be cosy and we were given a room with a small balcony overlooking a busy canal intersection.

We spend a lot of time in our hotel room, but we don’t feel like we are missing anything. At any moment we can look out and see three small bridges. One is continuously covered with tourists on their way to or from Piazza San Marco. They take pictures of us from several different vantage points. It reminds me of the Chinese tourists, who took many pictures of us, albeit for different reasons. In the intersection is a continuous stream of gondolas leaning to pass under one of the lowest bridges, water taxi pilots shouting at gondoliers to move to the side, and delivery boats waiting for a lull in the traffic. Isn’t that what Venice is really about?

Well, it’s romantic too—despite the hordes of tourists, the atrocious prices and arguing about grammar. It’s nice to wander and resist the temptation to check the map. We’ve wandered down a couple of dead-end alleyways to find isolated docks which look onto the larger canals. The tourists tend to congregate on the bridges while on their way from one tourist mecca to another, but there are still a few spots with a good view that provide a few moments of privacy.

We escaped the sheer boredom of renaissance Florence for medieval Siena. The train trip was quick and comfortable, a far cry from the hard seats in China. It’s also nice to see a new city without baggage or searching backstreets for the hotel.

The piazza was supposed to be one of the most beautiful in Italy, but wandering narrow streets and stumbling across lookout points was just as enjoyable.

The Medici fortress was nearly deserted and provided a great view of the hill town.

We found much to enjoy in Florence.  The weather was warm and bright, the trees are still a pretty green and the churches and museums are quite extraordinary.  This makes up for the 10 million tchotchke-buying, 3-camera-toting, McDonald’s-eating, cigar-smoking, baggage overloaded*, plump tourist which one must move through in order to enjoy said museums and churches.  I’m not complaining;  I’m one of the tourists.  But I don’t know how the Tuscans do it.  It is September, the end of tourist season, and still they find the will to smile.  Outstanding.

Most especially, we have enjoyed the food here. To be frank, I wasn’t expecting a lot whilst here because it’s hard for a tourist (like me!) to find a non-tourist joint that serves more than pizza and spaghetti and doesn’t charge 20 euro for the experience. However, we miraculously stumbled across 2 excellent places just a block from our hotel. The first is a cafe/bar at which we have cappuccini and croissants each morning. We had only been in twice before they remembered who we were and what we wanted. How delightful to find such a nice routine! The second place is a diner, of all things, with round booths and menus printed on paper place mats. We originally went in because we were hungry and couldn’t walk any further but were so happy to have great bruschetta, warm, chicken-liver tapenade, homemade tagliatelle and ravioli with walnut cream sauce. It was like our beloved Diner Deluxe. We even got freshly grated parmesan and a half-liter of unexpectedly good house wine. In half an hour, we are going back for another meal.

* As a sidebar, I can’t help but make an example of the couple we saw on our day-trip to Siena today. A young couple, they had TEN pieces of luggage with them, not including the heavy jacket and sweater they were carrying outside the bags. I don’t know how they manouever at all because it took several minutes blocking the door to the carriage to get off in Siena and they would’ve had to make it down and up two sets of stairs before even entering the station. And try to find a taxi that will fit all that luggage. Wow.

After we arrived to some gorgeous weather, we swung into full tourist mode.  This involved seeing, at a swift pace, several sites in the city in succession, with little pause for breaks or meals or rest for barking dogs.  This was the truly un-Roman part of our stay here.  Romans don’t visit the Colosseum!

They don’t tramp through the Forum on foot under the hot sun (why would you when you can weave through ultra-congested traffic on a scooter instead), and they don’t, under any circumstances, skip a meal.   We should’ve followed their example and stayed away from the Spanish Steps

and Trevi fountain during tourist season because we couldn’t get near the latter and couldn’t see the former for the tourists.  Literally.

However, we did “do as the Romans do” a couple of times:  I bought HUGE sunglasses and wore them everywhere, even on the metro;   we admired the greenery and the beautiful trees that can be seen on hillsides and along the river;  and we did take Sunday off to laze about on the balcony of our hotel and enjoy some parmigiano, fresh mozzarella and olives with our wine.

The crusades may not have captured the holy lands, but holy knights returned with hordes of relics. John Calvin famously remarked that there were enough pieces of the True Cross to build a ship from. Of course, cathedrals must be built at great expense to house such relics because you don’t put the Crown of Thorns in a shoe box in the back of your closet.

From 1246 to 1251, Sainte Chapelle was built to house the Crown of Thorns, two pieces from the True Cross, and the Roman lance that pierced the side of Christ. The relics may be litter off the battlefield, but the church is priceless. It made me wonder why Notre Dame was built when there was such a center of awe just down the road.

We first entered the lower chapel for the servants of the palace. The warm light and walls beautifully contrasted with the velvety blue ceiling, spotted with gold fleur-de-lis.

A small spiral staircase opens to the airy upper chapel. The thin columns and stained glass made me wonder how the roof was supported. The walls were almost entirely glass. The atmosphere in the chapel changed as the clouds passed over head. I spent a lot of time looking up the ceiling covered with stars.

Apparently there were still boxes of these relics laying around in the 20th Century. Sacre Coeur, when it was completed in 1919, finally provided a home for a piece of Jesus’ heart.

We were exceedingly lucky to have met some new friends in Siberia: Sophie and Fabrice Page. At the time, they were generous enough to offer to let us stay a few nights with them in Paris when we arrived. We happily took them up on the offer because we are, in point of fact, generally friendless and always happy to gain some local know-how.

The Pages live in Bazemont, a small village West of Paris, so we were able to visit a small market, eat fresh croissants and bread from the village bakery (thanks to Sophie’s early morning run) and taste vegetables fresh from the garden for lunch, along with BBQ ribs. One major highlight was the six different kinds of cheese they had procured in anticipation of our visit. (My reputation as a cheese fiend preceeds me.) We tasted Roquefort, Comte, Camembert, chevre, Roucoulou, and blue. And if that decadence wasn’t enough, we also comandeered the kitchen to make Marc’s favourtie dessert: Lemon Cakes with Lemon Basil Syrup.

The first night we arrived in Paris, Fabrice arranged to take us to a classic, old, French brasserie on the left bank where we ate duck, lamb, roasted chicken, cheseses and desserts; not to mention the wine, which was exceptional.

Sophie and Fabrice also introduced us to gallettes, which one takes with cider, and crepes with chocolate and peach jam. And, as a piece de resistance, they drove us up to the North coast in their Audi TT where we ate a tasty seafood lunch and strolled the beaches of Normandy. We were close to Juno beach, where the Canadians landed in 1944. And in Cabourg, we learned what a “Monaco” drink is: half lemonade, half beer, splash of grenadine. See below.

When we set off on our own in Paris, the first thing we did was indulge in a bed-picnic of bread and cheese.

There have been Eiffel Tower picnics since then- we just don’t have pictures of them.

I didn’t expect the Eiffel Tower to impress me. The first night we were in Paris, our friends Sophie & Fabrice drove us past while it shimmered like a spinning diamond. For a celebratory event, thousands of flashing lights were temporarily installed. Everyone liked it so much that it is now a permanent feature. At 9:00, 10:00, and 11:00 in the evening the lights give the appearance of a shimmering gemstone for ten minutes.

Regardless of the bling bling, the Eiffel Tower is impressive, and not in a Fort McMurray tourism sort of way. It is beautiful. Each angle and variance of light provides new appreciation for its subtleties. It also seems immense when standing underneath the sprawling legs. The lack of tall buildings nearby enlarges it even more and makes the view quite impressive. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge was a little boring in comparison.