Thursday was wonderful. Last January, for my birthday, Mer had given me tickets to go see Guys and Dolls with her at Playhouse Square, at the Hannah Theater. Guys and Dolls is my favorite musical comedy, and certainly in my top three musicals of any genre (it has a hard time unseating Man of La Mancha). Thursday was the day when we finally got to go see the play. We got dressed up and headed up to Cleveland.

They did an amazing job. The thing that jumped out at me was the choreography – there were long and elaborate and entertaining dance numbers throughout the play. The set was incredible, going from downtown New York to the inside of a club to a resort in Havana, all with good backdrops and set pieces. The buildings in the background of New York even had windows that lit up and blinking neon signs.

The acting and singing were superb. The leading man (Sky Masterson) had what may be the smoothest “musical” voice I have ever heard, AND he was a stunningly good-looking man to boot, not that I think Meredith noticed. The lead female role sang really well, and the supporting cast was much fun. I have seen Guys and Dolls done at a local theater, and they pulled it off well, but Playhouse Square knocked it out of the park. It’s a shame it closed on Sunday – I could have happily seen it again.

Tuesday was a fun and exciting midweek date day, initiated by Mer; she even got all dressed up. We started the evening by going over to Cardinal Village to have supper with Dale and Carlene. They asked what the event was, but all Mer would tell them was that it was a date night. After supper, she got me going in a specific direction, and I jokingly asked if we were going to Porthouse Theater. She surprised me by saying yes, and did I remember exactly how to get there? I did, and so that is where we ended up.

Porthouse Theater is the summer theater of Kent State University, located on the grounds of Blossom, the summer home of the Cleveland Orchestra. Porthouse typically puts on three productions per summer, with at least two musicals. We were there to see the musical South Pacific, which I had never seen and Mer had not seen in a long time.

The musical was very well performed, with especially strong leads. I was surprised by how much music I knew, from “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair” to “Some Enchanted Evening.” Songs I did not know were not usually too politically correct, but were really funny (“There Ain’t Nothing Like a Dame” comes to mind). The set was very good, with two levels and lots of island-themed props, like bamboo.

A rather large storm front moved in right at intermission, and poured. While it did not affect the production because the venue has a roof, Mer and I moved from our front row seats to several rows back because we were under a leak in the roof. Other than that, it was a fine evening.

Until I got back to the car. The road noise had been loud on the way to see Dale and Carlene, so I told Mer to remind me to check the air pressure in the tires. When we got back to the car after the play, and just as the rain was starting to fall again, I saw we had a totally flat right rear tire. I was going to change it out with the spare, but when the rains started falling harder and the lightning came back, I decided to ruin the tire and drive the six or so miles home on the flat; it was not worth saving eighty dollars to change a tire in a lightning storm. We made it home fine, and I was able to get the tire replaced the next day (it turns out it could hold pressure for about twenty-four hours, so I was able to fill it long enough to get to a tire place).

I’m still glad Mer took me out on a midweek date – it makes the work week more interesting.

Shannon left Monday afternoon, so we had time to do things in the morning. I had wanted to take Shannon to the Blue Door Restaurant here in Cuyahoga Falls; it is an amazing breakfast place, with gourmet breakfasts and European-style pastries. Sadly, as I had the wherewithal to look up before we left, they are closed on Monday and Tuesday. Plan B, then. I took Shannon to Yasoo, a breakfast restaurant that shares its space with a place called Hamburger Station (they change out menus at 11:00 or so). It is a hole-in-the-wall kind of place, with really good food. Shannon loved it.

We still had some time after breakfast, so we went home and grabbed Shannon’s stuff (so we could head to the airport if needed), and then I drove all of us over near Boston Store, in the Valley. I wanted to introduce Meredith and Shannon to the Stanford Trail, and then Shannon to Brandywine Falls.

I had hiked the Stanford Trail with my J-term class at CVCA back in January. The trail is very pretty, and fairly challenging, with several steep hill sections. It has a small stream as well, and has a remote feel to it, even though it is fairly easy to get to. Mer had never hiked it before, so it was new to her. The Stanford Trail has the advantage of joining up with the Brandywine Falls loop, which has the highlight of the boardwalks down to and overlooking the Falls themselves. Brandywine Falls is a pretty good-sized waterfall; it is the tallest in Northeast Ohio that I know of, and it is pretty to boot, spreading out over rock formations. Shannon seemed to like it pretty well. The Brandywine loop then follows the river down for awhile and crosses it, on a fairly new footbridge (you used to have to ford the stream). The loop took us back to the Stanford Trail, and we headed back to the car.

With one detour. When I had hiked the trail with my J-term class, I had seen a trail to a pond that I wanted to check out, but we did not have time. This time, I wanted to see it. Shannon made the smart alec remark that it was probably a little mud pond covered in algae. We hiked the quarter mile or so to the pond. Which was a little mud pond covered in algae. Needless to say, I got some grief about that.

Once back at the car, Shannon said he did not mind if we took him to the airport, even though it was a bit early (about forty-five minutes earlier than we would have otherwise gone). So, we headed toward Canton, but I deemed we had enough time to swing by Handel’s in North Canton, to which Shannon did not protest; he got one more Ohio experience under his belt, so to speak.

We dropped Shannon off at the airport, and he later e-mailed me to say he was at his gate about ninety minutes early; he got back to Chicago fine. We went home and resumed our more normal schedule by watching an episode of Lost while eating supper. I’m confident Shannon had a better time this time in Ohio than he did during his last (roofing) visit.

Sometimes Shannon gets lucky and gets things of which he reminds me for years. Such was Sunday. Shannon is my identical twin. He went to church with us because he really likes our pastor Ken. Shannon and Mer walked into church together while I used the bathroom. Ken saw Shannon, but thought he was I, and proceeded to tell him my recent Italian vacation did me a world of good because I looked so much younger. Mer then told Ken that Ken was speaking to Shannon. Shannon loved it.

After church, we headed home, and I made chocolate chip waffles with maple syrup, a standard Sunday treat in our home. Shannon had never had them before, and tried them. He finished his off, but then admitted he thought they were a tad too rich for breakfast food.

In order to fill in more rock exposure, the three of us drove over to the Gorge Trail in Cuyahoga Falls. Part of the trail had been closed last year, but was open again, although sections were still washed out and required some scrambling. The Gorge Trail has two real highlights – the exposed rock formations that you climb through on the far end, and the up-close look at the hydroelectric dam on the river that you pass on the way back. The rock is much less impressive than what’s at the Nelson Ledges State Park, but it is still pretty good and much closer.

We went home, and Shannon and I took naps while Mer went to a student’s graduation party. Shannon was invited, but was not keen on a social gathering where he knew almost no one. Mer came back home, and we waited for Zach and Londa to come along – they were kind enough to be willing to join us for supper.

Shannon was in luck – after two days of eating poorly, we all went to Aladdin’s, which is a Middle-Eastern-inspired restaurant; as such, it had a ton of vegetarian options. We had a great meal, and a wonderful time visiting with Zach and Londa.

After Zach and Londa dropped us off, it was still daylight out, so we headed over to the Ledges Park, which is only about five miles away. Again, the Ledges has less impressive rock formations than Nelson Ledges, but it still has a few narrow places in the rock faces in which to roam around. We also went to the west side of the park, which walks under the cliffs, and is a good walk with lots of impressive rock faces. We even made it to the overlook at the top of the park in time to see the sun set, which set behind a cloud so that it looked as if it was sending out “rays of glory.” We waited for the sun to go all the way below the horizon, and we headed home.

Saturday started out with Shannon’s and my running five miles down in the Valley, running under two different major highway bridges, which Shannon found cool. It was a fun time because of the company, but my run left me pretty beat (Shannon let me hear it, too). After heading home and getting ready for the day, we did a Shannon requirement – a good breakfast. Shannon’s favorite meal is breakfast, so we headed over to the dependable, if not exciting, Bob Evans. Mer observed that at least it is an Ohio-based chain, so it was sort of local. Breakfast hit the spot, and got us going for a day of art.

I had sent Shannon a link to an Ohio tourism website, mostly as a joke, but he actually used it and found out that the small, but quite good, art museum at Oberlin College was having a special exhibit on medieval art. Both Shannon and his wife Jo are really into all things medieval, so he really wanted to go. Oberlin is about an hour away, so off we went. As a bonus, the museum also had special exhibits on book illustrations, which I knew Mer would like, and Saturday was also the day of the town’s sidewalk chalk art fair. It was a good day to be going.

The museum at the college is free, even the special exhibits. Shannon was impressed with the medieval art pieces – there were probably about forty of them in all. I liked them because the vast majority of the works were religious in subject matter, and that always interests me; plus, Mer and I felt as if it was an extension of our recent Italy trip.

We more or less blew through the regular museum to get upstairs to where they had fifteenth-century illustrated church choir books on display; they were elaborate and impressive. Next to them was the exhibit on modern book illustrations, with examples from books by Poe, Bronte, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and more. Mer, as I expected, loved the books.

We headed back outside to see the chalk art. It was quite good, and varied wildly in effort and talent and subject matter. That was very cool – you could have kids drawing more or less next to “real” established artists. What really surprised me was the size of the event; I had thought it would be more or less around the art museum, but it stretched for five or six blocks in two directions. We wandered over the entire space, and we enjoyed the scene, even in the mid-afternoon heat.

We headed home and rested a little, after swinging by Handel’s for ice cream. Shannon impressed us by getting a shake and then going back for a sundae. Back at the house, our friend Ami (“Dubbs”) came over, which was a meeting six years in the making. I love Dubbs – she is a ton of fun, and I knew Shannon and Dubbs would get a kick out of each other. I had tried to get them to meet over the last six years, but it never worked out. Happily, I was right – Shannon and Dubbs hit it off, even to the point of Dubbs carrying Shannon piggy-back into the movie theater later in the evening.

We headed over to Big Boy in Valley View because Dubbs had mentioned it. For the second evening in a row, Shannon ate a veggie burger. He and I both ordered shakes, which were good, but more than either of us could finish. I actually got a little ill from the heat of the day, and had to spent a little too much time in the bathroom. After supper, we walked over to and then over a very cool pedestrian bridge, so Shannon got more bridges in for the day.

We finished the evening by going to the theater nearby to see Joss Whedon’s version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing. I loved it – it was an updated version that worked well, and it was well acted and funny throughout. The movie had a great scene where Beatrice overhears that Benedict loves her, and it was the first time Mer or I had ever seen that scene play out as amusingly as the corresponding scene with Benedick. It was really well done. The only slightly odd thing was that the four of us were more or less the only people in the theater who were laughing, and it was a very funny production. Strange.

Art and Shannon had a pretty good day of it.

My brother Shannon last came out to visit us in Ohio about three years ago. I immediately put him to work for three days helping me put a new roof on the house. They were long, hot days, and for some reason he has stayed away for three years. Odd.

He finally made his triumphant return to Ohio on Friday when he flew into my favorite convenient airport, CAK (Akron-Canton). We met him with no problems and took him home, where we could plan our assault on fun. Shannon had told me he expected only two things – he had better see lots of rocks on hiking trails, and he had better eat ice cream at Handel’s. That helped get Friday’s plan in order – we took him forty-five minutes away to Nelson Ledges State park, my favorite park in Ohio for impressive rock formations.

We chatted the whole way out to the park, and found it with no issues thanks to the handy little GPS. We started into the park, which is modest-looking enough at first, and we went right, heading toward the waterfalls. The rock formations emerge suddenly out of the trees, and Shannon started tromping about them, investigating little side trails and such. He was impressed with the height and beauty of the falls, even though the volume of water is low. Then I took him to the “big guns” – the red trail.

There are four trails at Nelson Ledges, and each is (somewhat) marked by different colored blazes. The red trail is the most difficult and leads over, under, and through many rock formations. Shannon finally had to admit he was impressed, especially when the three of us went through a new-to-all-of-us crack in the rock that was a long and very narrow squeeze, but still officially part of the red trail. We made our way down into rock formations that actually had cool breezes blowing out of them because of the cave-like temperatures in them. We made our way back from the end of the red trail via the blue trail, which was easier, but still interesting (although it did give rise to the derogatory comment of “That’s so blue trail!” by me and Shannon). It was a great outing.

On the way to the park, I had noticed lines in the road that looked like buggy tracks, so I mentioned there must be Amish nearby. That made Mer remember that Mary Yoder’s Amish Restaurant should be close by, and once again our little GPS came in handy – it found the restaurant on the “search” feature, and so we went there for supper. Shannon is a vegetarian, so his options were sort of limited, but he had a veggie-burger and all was well. We all had pretty giant pieces of pie for dessert, and we headed home. Day One made up some small ground in erasing the memory of roofing the house.

We saw and did an amazing array of things in Italy in two weeks. It is dizzying to think on and hard to believe all the ground we covered. I tried to cover each day in its own blog entry, but I do have a collection of random thoughts and impressions from the trip as a whole. The thoughts are in no particular order.

Italians smoke too much. Happily, smoking on trains and in restaurants and other enclosed spaces is forbidden, but I saw a ton of Italians on the streets who were smoking. While I think smoking is expensive and harmful, I get especially sad when I see young people smoking, because I really feel they should know better. I saw kids who were clearly in their early teens smoking, and that was depressing.

Mer and I like to keep an eye on fashion in Europe in general, and in Italy in particular. We both feel that Italians have a fine sense of style, on the whole. On this trip, we noticed a few trends, a couple of which were really odd to us. Italian women and some men seemed to be really big into wearing scarves for fashion, even when it was really hot outside. People also wore a lot of shirts with either the colors or some form of the American flag on the shirt – it seemed pretty common. We also noticed that t-shirts with English words on them were big.

Christianity is a very old religion. We saw art from AD 220 and lists of bishops from AD 55, and we were in many many churches that were built in the twelfth century. It gives a strange and somber weight to a church when it has been around for seven or eight hundred years. I loved these reminders of the faith being passed on generation to generation for twenty centuries.

I know this is an odd thing to comment on, but Italian bathrooms in general and toilets in particular were always a minor adventure. Some sinks had handles and some had foot pedals. Most of the showers’ hot/cold directions were backwards to ours, but the sinks were the same direction as ours. The toilets all had various flushing mechanisms – one button, two buttons, on the tank, on the wall, on the floor, pull-mechanisms near the ceiling, and more. It is a minor thing, but a constant reminder that I was not at home. Public bathrooms had fully private stalls with full doors, like being in your own little bathroom; our mini-stalls must freak out Italians when then come to the States.

Italians are very casual about time at supper in restaurants. It is expected that patrons will want to linger over meals, which is wonderful in general, but can be frustrating to a tourist trying to maximize time. There were a few times we skipped sit-down restaurants because we knew getting the check and paying the bill would be a long process. It is considered rude for the waitstaff to bring you your check, so you have to request it. Then, you have to flag down the staff again to pay the bill. I approve of this as a cultural norm, but there were times where we spent twenty minutes just trying to get out of a restaurant when we had finished eating.

We saw a fair amount of construction going on in Italy. Oddly enough, for me, it was curious to see that Italian construction companies put up the huge skyscraper-style tower cranes for almost all jobs, even ones that were only two or three stories (in the States we would use small, truck-mounted cranes for smaller jobs). It always made for an interesting skyline, even in smaller towns.

English is everywhere in Italy, and is the common language when Italian can’t be used. Even store clerks would know some English, and we saw at least one occasion where an Italian and a continental European used English as the common language in which to communicate. Often, trains and buses had English translations after the Italian announcements. While I’m a bit worried about English/American cultural imperialism, I was not sad that so many people knew at least basic English.

Rome is old; there are ancient ruins and buildings everywhere. I was laughing with Meredith that you know you have lots of old stuff when you leave it lying around next to buildings, exposed to the elements. In places not quite so old, even pieces of columns are put in museums – in Rome they are just around everywhere you go.

Italy’s train system is excellent. We only regretted not having a car one time (when trying to get to Assisi), and even then it was not so bad. The trains are almost all electric, which makes them quiet, efficient, and fast. I loved traveling by train in Italy – we could see the country, and we met a lot of interesting people along the way.

Italy is expensive, especially food costs. Many of the restaurants we ate in had higher-end prices we would see in the States, but the prices were in euros, which made them roughly half-again as expensive. There were times we would eat a nice but smaller meal and it would cost us fifty dollars.

On the plus side, all Italian prices include taxes – there is no guessing what the final price of anything will be, and you end up dealing with a lot less change.

Italy has one- and two-euro coins. It was always difficult to process that a coin could be worth three dollars.

Dogs can go pretty much anywhere in Italy, including into malls and restaurants. That was pretty startling to me, but in general the dogs did behave.

Italy is full of astonishing beauty. I fell deeply in love with the Cinque Terre, Lake Como, and the Dolomites – they were all beautiful in ways I had not even imagined.

Mer likes to point out that travel is always either a good experience or a good story, and that was certainly true. One of the reasons I love Meredith is we can travel together for sixteen days, and while I was not always a paragon of grace and love, we still always wanted to be together. That is pretty great.

Travel in Italy is a good thing for my faith. Not only does Italy have reminders of Christianity everywhere, but also, travel in general teaches you that you are not in control, and in my case, you cannot always even communicate. Not even knowing how to work a sink can make you feel a long way from home, and that reminded me that we are not supposed to get too comfortable here on Earth since our real home is with God. In a sense, I’m on one long tourist trip. It is good to be shaken out of routine and comfort to be reminded of blessings at home and as a way to evaluate what is important.

This was a great trip, and I owe it entirely to Mer. She saved up money for the better part of a year so we could afford to go, and then she did ninety percent of the planning of the trip. It was expensive, and there were times I missed my home, but the trip was wonderful and worth it. Sometimes you just have to trust the wife, because she really knows what awaits. I am a very lucky man in many ways, not the least of which is being paired with a woman who loves me enough to share her dreams with me.

I slept soundly – only the second time that happened on the whole trip. I woke up and lounged in bed, but then a small voice in my head started nagging at me. Usually flights leaving from Europe leave in the morning and return in the evening. I got out of bed and looked at our itinerary; I had read the wrong line, and our flight was really leaving at 10:45 am, and not at 4:30 pm. I looked at the clock, and it was 9:00 am. For international flights you are supposed to be at the airport two hours early. I told Mer what was going on, and we scrambled to get everything ready – we had only slim hopes of making it, but we had to try.

We dashed out of the hotel, grateful that we had paid the night before. The bus to the airport was not leaving for twenty minutes, so we jumped on the train instead. Amazingly, we got to the airport at 10:00 am – not bad for waking up at 9:00. Sadly, it was all for naught – we were told the plane was boarding, and we would have to rebook. I knew that was not going to be cheap, but we had no other option. We headed over to the ticket counter, where we were told our best option was to get the same flight out the next day, and, oh, yes, that would be $1,200 please. Ouch. Sigh. That put a bit of a damper on the day, but I am a practical man, so I was determined to try to make a day of it in Rome. Mer was gracious enough to forgive me, but she was a tad subdued for much of the remainder of the day.

On the plus side, we took the train back to the station, and the hotel manager was sympathetic and was also able to give us our room back for another day. He also honored his breakfast voucher for a light breakfast at a cafe down the street, and he even gave us Monday’s voucher as well, since we would be leaving before the cafe opened. He was a very nice man.

We settled things back in the room, and then grabbed our breakfast, which was muffins. They were quite good, actually. We headed back to the room, where I planned our bonus day, with some input from Mer. I’m not sure we could get a thousand-dollar day out of things, but I was going to try. We headed out around 1:00 and went to the train station, where we picked up an all-day metro pass, and we headed to the bus station, where we took a bus away from the city center, out to the Catacombs of Priscilla.

I had never seen catacombs before, and I figured touring something underground would be wise in the Roman midday heat. We got to the convent above the catacombs a little before they opened at 2:30, and we struck up a conversation with a family of four from eastern Pennsylvania. The doors opened at 2:30, and we got our tickets, and waited for the tour to start (they have English-language tours when there are enough English speakers).
We had a good-sized group of over twenty people, which made viewing parts of the catacombs difficult sometimes. Our group leader was a pretty and charming young woman who I think was Germanic, based on her accent; her English was excellent. The catacombs were very impressive – there are over forty thousand graves in over ten miles of tunnels. Groups follow a well-defined tour path, and can only stay down in the catacombs for thirty minutes because the volcanic rock of the catacombs naturally gives off radioactive radon gas. In fact, our tour guide told Meredith that she can only work one day a week because of the exposure to the gas.

The catacombs date back to at least AD 220, and include some of the oldest Christian art still in existence, including the oldest-known portrayal of Mary and an infant Jesus, which is in a ceiling fresco dated to AD 220. There are depictions of the nativity scene dating to around 280, as well as a few other frescoes that still survive. The graves along the tour are all empty (except for two graves that are still sealed with marble) because, sadly, early tours of the tombs included people who would take bones as souvenirs. The catacombs away from the tour route still have bones in them, but in most of the catacombs the marble that was used to seal the graves has been largely looted over the last eighteen hundred years.

I loved the catacomb tour. I like tunnels to start with, and I found it interesting and informative to be in such an ancient site. I would have rather caught my flight back home, but it was a grand way to make use of the day.
Mer and I decided to continue our “day of the dead” tour by taking a bus to the Capuchin Crypt, and the family from Pennsylvania went with us. The Capuchins are an order of Franciscan monks who are still active worldwide today. The Capuchin order has an interesting museum and a unique crypt in and under the church of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, a few blocks from the Spanish Steps. What most people come to see is the crypt, which has the bones and some bodies of former Capuchins arranged in six galleries. The bones are piled up and nailed to the walls to make decorations around the dried-out bodies of dead Capuchins who are still in robes, some standing and some lying down. As far as Mer and I could tell, no one seems to know who arranged the bones and bodies, or why, but they are quite sobering. I was very pleased that the Capuchins have used the attraction of the crypt to highlight the work they did and are doing around the world, and they also had at least two displays with a clear presentation of people’s need for Jesus; it was a great way for them to spread the good news of the Gospel, especially since you end up staring at a strong reminder that you too will die someday.

After the crypt, we said goodbye to the family from Pennsylvania, and Mer and I walked over to the church of Santa Maria del Popolo to see some artwork there. Along the way, we swung by the Spanish Steps, which is a popular tourist area and local hangout. We came at it form the top, and so we were able to go down the steps before continuing on our way to Santa Maria. The church has a chapel designed by Raphael, with two of Bernini’s statues in it, and the church has two paintings by our now-oft-seen Caravaggio – the Crucifixion of St. Peter and the Conversion on the Way to Damascus. Both are amazing paintings, but I think the Crucifixion of St. Peter is more striking and more focused. The church itself was a pretty church, and was located in a large square that had a crowd of people milling around, listening to a small band playing at one end. It was a nice little slice of social life in Rome.

We then headed back to the hotel to regroup and to check on cat-sitters back home. We still had not had supper, so we decided on heading to the Campo dei Fiori, which is a famous and popular square. Sadly, it is not easy to get to using public transportation, but we compensated for that by using the metro to get to the Colosseum. The interior was closed for the evening, but it is still impressive and iconic to see, and we walked from there to the square, which is a little over a mile.

Along the way, we got to see some of the ruins of the Roman Forum, and then we passed the huge memorial to Italy’s first king, Victor Emmanuel. From there we passed the Largo Argentina Ruins (ancient Roman ruins from around the time of Christ). The ruins were home to numerous feral cats – it was like a cat playground with all of the levels of columns and steps. We finally made it to the Campo, which was quite happening. I’m afraid at this point my two muffins had worn off, and I was pretty much a bear to be with. It took us a few tries to find a place to eat, but we finally settled on an outdoor pizza restaurant just off the main square. It was a very pleasant place to eat, and once I had eaten, I was more pleasant to be around.

We walked back to the Colosseum, which was a much shorter-seeming walk now that we knew where we were going. Even with its being about 10:00, the streets were still quite lively with people. Back at the hotel, Mer and I made sure our alarm was set for the next morning, and we got ready for bed. It was an expensive and unplanned-for day in Rome, but I was pleased we had made the best of a frustrating mistake.

Our hotel/apartment in Assisi overlooked a very cute square, which I thought was wonderfully charming – until I tried to go to bed. While I never got the feeling that anyone was drunk or out of control, there were waves of enthusiastic people coursing though the piazza until 2:30 am. Needless to say, I did not sleep very well. Then, in the morning, Mer confronted the fact that the “shower” was really the world’s smallest bathtub with no curtain. In addition, the hand shower sprayed in all directions, including at right angles to the showerhead. When Mer’s quick shower was done, the bathroom was swamped. I tried briefly to “shower,” but gave up and washed my hair in the kitchen sink.

We packed up and checked out and managed to catch the bus to the station quite efficiently. We were headed to Rome, and the next train did not leave for an hour and a half. So, after some quick deliberations, we checked our bags and walked the short walk to Mary of the Angels, a large church near the station. What I did not realize, but Mer did, was that this was a very important Francis of Assisi site, and I was deeply grateful to Mer that she got me to see it.

When Francis had a few followers, a benefactor gave him a very small church to use. Francis repaired the church, which was called the Porziuncola. Francis often lived in a hut nearby, and he died next to the church. Mary of the Angels church was built around these sites – literally. In the middle of the tenth biggest church in the world is the still-intact Porziuncola, all four walls and the roof. There are a small chapel and marker where Francis died, and a small memorial in the church complex to show where he lived. We walked through the whole site, and we really enjoyed the modern art paintings that told the story of St. Clare, a young woman who decided to become a nun, following the practices of Francis as closely as she could. The paintings were very striking.

We headed back to the station, where we caught our train to Rome. While on the platform for the train, a man asked me if I would help a woman with her bag because she had a bad back. I agreed, and thus Mer and I met Susan, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle, who had just wrapped up being in charge of a three-month student program in Italy. The students had gone home, and Susan had taken a week to relax, and she was headed to Rome to fly home on Sunday. We chatted much of the way to Rome, and she was quite interesting and funny.

Our hotel was right next to the train station, and we checked in around 3:00. I was “in charge” for Rome, so I did a little research in Mer’s Rick Steves tour book, and Mer pointed out a few things based on my itinerary (things along the way). So, we started our brief tour of Rome by heading over to some former Roman baths, one part of which was turned into Rome’s Mary of the Angels church. Along the way, we managed to run into the staging area for the Rome gay pride parade, which was quite a contrast with the church we entered. You could still hear the music from the parade inside the church, which I suspect broke the usual calm of the huge church.

We then headed a few blocks away to another church. Some time ago my brother had given me a DVD set called The Power of Art. This set is where I learned to appreciate Caravaggio as a painter, and it also introduced me to the astonishing sculptor Bernini. The program focused on his piece The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, and it is a moving piece. It turns out that the statue is in Rome, in a chapel of the church St. Mary of Victory. So, having seen Caravaggio paintings, we took the opportunity to see St. Teresa.

The sculpture is amazing, but I was most pleased to see the context of the work in the church. The program had lots of close-ups and angles we could not see from the floor, so it really showed off the statue to better effect than seeing it in person. What we could see in person was the whole church, which was elaborately decorated, but harmoniously so, with lots of gold coloring. The church itself is fairly small, and that made the space seem intimate.
By this time, around 5:00, I was fairly hungry and hoping to get chicken for the protein. Mer found Flann O’Brien’s pub, which is an Italian take on an Irish pub. The “Irish” pub had lots of pasta, and listed food in courses in the Italian way, but they did have chicken, which I was happy to order. I also got an order of potatoes, which managed to be Italian by being coated in olive oil and rosemary, but were excellent.

We went back to the hotel, where I rested about an hour. I found a little lie-down to be very helpful after the heat of Italy’s afternoons. We still had plenty of daylight, so I decided we should head over to the Vatican, and then walk back through the city. We took the Metro to near the Vatican and walked the four blocks there. We got there after the church and museum had closed, but the square around St. Peter’s is still impressive. It was being filled with tons of chairs, and we found out that Pope Francis was celebrating Mass the next morning. We looked and strolled around, and after a failed attempt on my part to find a nearby park, we headed down the main road leading to St. Peter’s, with my goal of crossing the Tiber and walking back to the station.

There were a ton of people out along the road, and an inordinate number of them were nuns. We could not quite figure out what was going on. We got to the end of the road, and some polite men offered us candles. Mer asked what was happening, and as near as she could make out, there was going to be a celebration that night, and the Pope might make an appearance. After some debate, I decided we should try to see the Pope, so we got our candles and stuck around. We waited about an hour, but the evening was cool, and it was a fun place to watch people.

A little after 9:00, some officials gave some speeches, some in Italian and some in English. We had trouble making out the particular words, but the speeches wound down, and people started moving toward the Vatican, so we did too. I have to admit it was a bit strange – here were two American Protestants walking with a couple thousand Catholics toward St. Peter’s, walking between barricades as tourists watched. We filed into the courtyard of St. Peter’s, and Mer and I ended up quite close to the stage. People spontaneously began singing a version of “Ave Maria” several times as people continued to pour in behind us.

Once people were more or less settled in, a small service of sorts began, with priests and nuns praying and saying the creeds and the Lord’s prayer. It turns out the march was a celebration-of-life march – for the unborn, for the sick, for the needy, and for justice. Sadly, the Pope never made an appearance, but it was a great experience of which to be a part, both on a cultural and spiritual level.

By now, it was 10:00, and so I gave up on my idea of walking home. We made our way back to the station (walking behind a priest and a cardinal). Once on the train, Mer saw we were passing close to the Trevi Fountain, so she wanted to go see it. I thought that sounded fun, so we got off at the stop. To our surprise, there were no signs, so we headed off as best we could. At one point we backtracked, and then went back down the hill again, and to our surprise and delight, we ran into Diana and Kate, the young women from the train to Florence. We were on the same street corner at the same time in Rome – it was quite bizarre. We were near their hotel, and Diana ducked in to get ready for bed while Kate walked us the two blocks to the fountain. She really saved us a ton of time – for a famous site, the Trevi Fountain is not easy to find. We thanked Kate, and we jumped into the tourist fray. We took a couple of pictures, and made our way to the edge of the fountain, where we threw in a coin together. Tradition holds that if you throw in a coin, you will return to Rome. We had done that the last time we were in Rome about eighteen years ago, so we’ll see if we are about sixty next time we get there.

We walked back to the hotel, going past a huge palace along the way (I think it is or was the presidential palace). We grabbed some pizza just before the hotel, and so we had a late and light supper back in our room. I had read the flight itinerary for the next day, and our flight was not until 4:30 pm, so we had an easy morning ahead of us to sleep in.

Three churches, a gay pride parade, a life-celebration march, a sculpture of an ecstatic nun, an Italian/Irish pub, finding two needle girls in Rome’s haystack, and a crowded public fountain. It was a bit of a surreal day in Rome.

Given the confusing nature of Siena’s streets, it was fitting that on trying to leave the city, we got lost by going exactly the wrong way. Happily, Siena is such a small city that we were able to recover the mistake without messing up our timing for our train (plus, in anticipation of this possibility, I had gotten us out of our hotel early).

Our next destination was Assisi. Sadly, there is no good way to get to Assisi. Even though we were leaving from the train station, the two-hour driving distance would take us five hours, using first a bus, and then two more trains. We (mostly Mer) helped out a woman from Iowa who thought she had a ticket for the bus, but only had an itinerary instead (as the very excitable driver told us in very emphatic Italian). To be fair, the driver did finally help the woman get a ticket, but it was tense for a few minutes, and the bus did leave about ten minutes late.

The bus ride was through absolutely beautiful hill country with picturesque farms everywhere. The beauty helped make up for the speed difference between bus and train, and the trip was pleasant. The train legs of the journey were fine, and we got to Assisi and checked in to our hotel about 3:00. The hotel was quite marvelous, with our “room” actually being a small apartment with a kitchen and separate bathroom. Mer and I were impressed, especially since the cost was very reasonable (I think it was the second-cheapest place, after the hostel in Ravenna).

I like to listen to college lectures produced by the Great Courses (formerly The Teaching Company); I listen to them when I run, and it helps pass the time profitably. Recently I  bought three lecture series on Christianity that I thought would be informative without being irritating; I bought a lecture series on Francis of Assisi, a lecture series on great Christians (which covered Francis in one lecture), and a series on the history of the Catholic Church (which covered Francis in a lecture). With all of these talks on Francis, I really wanted to go to Assisi, and Mer humored me.

Assisi is really cute. The town is up on a hill about two miles from the train station, which connects to the town with a one-euro bus fare. Mer did not know exactly where our hotel was located, but wisely pointed out that if we rode the bus to the end of the line, the hotel would be downhill instead of up.

We found our hotel after wandering some wonderfully narrow streets, although shockingly, people still drove down them. I pointed out to Mer that people will go to rather ridiculous lengths to have a car nearby; some of these streets were really tight even for small cars.

The first order of business for the day was to visit the Basilica of St. Francis. The Basilica is huge, and was built shortly after Francis died, to honor him. At the lowest level is a crypt with the tomb of St. Francis; above is a church decorated with frescoes of the life of Jesus on one wall and of St. Francis on the other; on the main level is the basilica, which is gigantic and decorated, but not to the excess we found in some of the cathedrals we saw on this trip.

We walked down (and down and down) to the church, and we started in the lower church so we could visit the crypt first. I have a couple of Catholic friends, and I badly wanted to burn a candle for their families and pray for them, as an encouragement to their famlies. It turns out you can’t burn a candle yourself, but you can buy a candle and set it aside for a friar to light on the altar at a later time. Mer and I did find a quiet corner behind the altar/tomb to pray, and it was a peaceful time.

We popped back up to the “smaller” church, and wandered around looking at it. The art was grand, but we were both amused and horrified that small chapels had been added to the main church after it was built, and this required them to cut through the frescoes. That was a shame even as far as that goes, but it looks as if one of the frescoes must have been the resurrection of Jesus – the panel before it is of Jesus being put in the tomb. Who thought it was a good idea to remove the resurrection panel?

We popped up into the main level of the church. I actually do not have many impressions of it – my main purpose was to see the crypt and to pray for my friends, so the basilica impressed without leaving an impression. The outside of the church is simple and beautiful, with a wide green space and a modern sculpture of Francis riding his horse back from trying to go to war, when he had to go home because he was ill and because he felt God wanted him to go back. It was an interesting and striking piece to put outside the basilica.

We went up (and up and up) to the hotel so I could rest, but we swung by a small overlook and sat looking down on the basilica for a few minutes. The overlook was outside a small church that I would have loved to have gone in and looked around, but it seemed as if a small Mass was going on, which I did not want to disturb. I was really overheated, and I grabbed a Sprite for the sugar and water, and drank it back in the room; I napped a little as well, until about 7:00. I felt better for the rest, and so we headed out for supper at an amazing spot. Assisi has a restaurant that has balconies overlooking the entire plain and hills around Assisi. The food was fine, but the view was unbeatable.

I then decided we should just wander around town and enjoy the alleyways. I always tried to choose small streets that were car-free, and I liked taking stairs up anywhere they presented themselves.  We saw a sign pointing up, but it was in German, so we could not read it. We took the stairs anyway, and we stumbled on a small gathering of Germans sitting on benches in front of a shrine to Mary, getting ready for a small worship service. They were very friendly and offered us song sheets, but we don’t speak German, and we did not know how long the service would take, so we declined as graciously as we could. As we wandered off, we heard them singing – it was pretty nice.
We kept wandering up, and saw a kitty. Upon turning the corner where the kitty was, we discovered a courtyard with five kitties in it, at the feet of a woman speaking English to someone on the phone. She seemed amused as we fussed over the cats, and as we were leaving, she told us to come by anytime to see them.

We continued up and up, and finally reached the access road to the old castle overlooking all of Assisi. The castle itself is a tourist attraction and has hours of operation, and it was closed. However, the hill is accessible, and it has an amazing view, and it was sunset. There were only three of four other people around, and it was quite peaceful. We lingered for a fair amount of time, but I wanted to make sure we still had some daylight as we made our way back to the town. I was pleased by that decision, as the well-maintained-but-still-dirt path we took down brought us past a couple of unhappy dogs and dumped us out near what appeared to be a small, abandoned part of Assisi. It was a very short walk into the main town from there, but I was happy to have some light to see by.

Back at the hotel, I discovered I was out of range of the main hotel wi-fi signal (we were in another building), so Mer and I went into the square and sat outside a cafe. Mer read while I checked e-mail for any urgent messages (there were not any), and while I drank a hot chocolate. The evening had cooled down, and it was a pleasant place to sit. I have to agree with Assisi’s claim to be a “city of peace.”