The Smiths - Home from Italy

Our trip to Italy was a celebration of Marv's retirement from the PW School System. We met with Tom and Ann and chose the hotel for the 3 extra days in Rome after the tour ended. I packed too much, as usual, and Marv didn't pack enough and so did a little laundry. We were armed with belly pouches from Rick Steves for passports and money purses from Meijer that hung around our necks. Marv purchased some Euros prior to the trip so they would be familiar.

I had never visited Europe, so I was anxious to experience the feeling of history, hear different languages, and enjoy pasta and wine. The first part of the trip was as expected. until we were to leave the plane in Amsterdam. Our friend seated ahead of us could not find her passport, so we stayed to re-look through bags and seats. Even the captains came back, but no passport was to be found. The decision to watch our friend go alone to the Immigration office was a difficult one to make. Keith, Marv, Mary Jane and I, trying to get through customs, finished our full-body security checks 20 minutes after our flight was to leave. We then had to transfer to another flight, using the unfriendly personnel of KLM, who had very ugly uniforms, right Mary Jane?). Marv's luggage had not arrived in Rome and was delivered late at night. We missed the introductory tour and initial information. A new passport was issued to our friend, and she made it to the hotel late that night.

There is no way I would try to recreate the entire trip, especially when you can read the highlights in the earlier entries in Ann's blog. Some things that made the trip special were the month-old Mercedes Benz bus for comfortable rides between sites. Salvatore was our young driver who impressed Marv with his hairpin-short turns and smooth shifting, "never a jerk". Lidia was our Trafalgar tour guide and knew Italy in every way. 'Ciao, ciao, ciao, ciao' (like our bye-bye) will ring in my mind. Lidia not only gave us the facts about sites, but volunteered stories about her own life and experiences in Italy. I was much interested in Italian family life and society, especially the comparisons of Catholic faith there and in the States. She wore neat reading glasses that split apart with a magnet between the eyes. A few of us had to have a pair.

I enjoyed everything we saw. I was amazed at the size of the churches and basilicas (a basilica means the church contains relics). St. Mary, Westphalia, is a large church, but the ones we saw would dwarf it. Enormous marble columns (so much marble!), intricate spires, ornately decorated outsides. The insides were full of gorgeous, huge paintings of all colors. I was especially on the lookout for the azure-blue of lapis lazuli and saw it vividly in the Sistine Chapel and in the Cistercian Abbey in Pavia. There is great care taken to preserve these paintings, with dim lighting and prohibition of photos. There was an abundance of mosaic images, looking as detailed as large paintings, made with small pieces of marble, glass, or gold. The floors themselves were intricate designs of different colors of marble. The churches often had a huge main altar with a high roofed pulpit. There could be from 6 to 12 side altars with their own beautiful decorations. In Rome, during our last days, we visited Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica, and went to confession in one of the many bilingual confessionals. In a chapel of the church was a magnificent marble sculpture of a Pope buried there, complete with delicate lace trim on his gown. The viewing of the Shroud of Turin was sobering--I had not realized there were so many marks of Jesus' suffering to be seen. Michaelangelo's David was larger than I expected and so lifelike in marble, complete with veins under his skin. We saw DaVinci's Last Supper mural painting in Milan at Santa Maria delle Grazie. It covers an entire wall of what was a dining hall. We learned much about the configuration of Apostles at the table. If your picture of the Last Supper has a dog or cat in it, it was not in this original, but added in a later rendition.

The canals of Venice were not as dirty as I had been prepared for, and traveling by gondola and water taxi was fun. However, I would not like to live with no yard--to step out the back door into water. The island of Burano off Venice was lined with houses of every bright color, so beautiful to approach by water. Shopping for leather purses in Florence was a hoot. Our day in Assisi was a contrast in noisy, jostling crowds in the magnificent basilica and blue-sky serenity in the village and miles of breathtaking view. I could have spent more time there. In the north of Italy, seen on our long coach rides, were amazing miles of vineyards, clean and symmetrical, differing heights depending on water table. This farm girl was glad to see the countryside. In the mountains, where we might see patches of clear cut forest in the States, in Italy we saw removal of marble in huge swaths. I was struck by old farmhouses, some standing in the middles of fields, not torn down like we do here. In Italy, things are preserved, and it gives a sense of continuity and 'roots.' I can only think of the beautiful trim that we have overlaid in local churches after a few decades in favor of modernity. There, aging is respected and preserved. Of course, marble and concrete endure compared to wood, but the culture of preserving history is something we usually do not feel here.

In Rome, it was unbelievable to see the Colosseum, the Roman ruins, Circus Maximus (now an empty field that used to seat 250,000 spectators of chariot races), the Pantheon, with the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome, still in use as a Catholic Church. During our last 3 days in Rome, Tom, Ann, Linda, Deb, Charlotte, Marv, and I rode the open air tour buses and stopped at the spots we wanted. I was just in awe of these 2000 year old sites in the middle of a world capitol city. Turn a corner on a busy street, and there are ancient columns keeping silent sentinal. Here and there were cornerstones, parts of statues and carvings, artifacts from so long ago it is hard to fathom, just sitting in the grass. The Castle of Angels, looking more like a dungeon, offered a panoramic view of Rome from the roof. The Bridge of Angels, leading to the castle, was lined with marble angels created by Michaelangelo, gravely holding items from Jesus' passion on the cross.

The sun warmly shined on us most of the time, except some rain while in the coaches. However, we were pelted with an uncharacteristic hail storm that lasted 15-20 minutes while in an open plaza in Rome. An aberration from the Iceland volcanic ash cloud? Tom's 2-Euro umbrellas helped save us. Although we were worried about whether or not we would get out on our scheduled flights due to the ash cloud's disruption of flights in Europe , 6 of us did leave on one of the first flights allowed out of Amsterdam Wednesday morning. A special last treat was flying over the rainbow of 'Holland' tulip fields as we approached Amsterdam airport. I woke Thursday morning to hear Rich Michaels on WMMQ radio mentioning the ash cloud and people stuck in Europe. I called and talked to him on the air and reported that we were home and the rest of the St. Johns/St. Thomas tour were leaving that day, thanks to Fuller Travel. He said he had read about us and asked about the ash cloud and how it affected us (and welcomed us home).

It was wonderful to strengthen old friendship bonds and meet new friends during the tour. I feel refreshed and refueled to get back to work and home duties. Marv and I are committed to seeing more of our big world. Our spirituality was enhanced by seeing the beauteous expressions of our Christian faith in the churches and religious art contained in them. I am anxious to see where Fuller Travel goes next in the following years.