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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stockholm marks the end of four months of travelling and we have not come close to tiring of it. Much of this is the result of the beers, coffees, snacks, cocktails and wine for which we stop every… oh, 20 meters, or so. This is interspersed by daily wanderings and visits to museums. 
We’ve started a list, now, of Museums We Have Visited. The beginning of this list consists mainly of items such as “That Museum in Renmin Park, in Shanghai, You Know- The One With The Children’s Exhibit” but becomes more accurate towards the end. The latest additions are the Swedish Museum of Modern Art, the Architecture Museum of Sweden and the Vasa Museum. All three were pretty impressive (one of which inspired a creative self-portrait), but the first prize goes to the Vasa: a full-scale restoration of a ship launched – and promptly lost – in 1628.
