First we visited the beautiful medieval town of Siena which is famous for Il Palio – the summer horse races that take place in the astonishingly small town square. I had seen the races on American television and have always been amazed at the talented jockeys who ride the horses bareback. Yesterday, Salvatore explained that there are 14 horses in Il Palio – each representing a contrade or district in the city. People become very competitive with each other during the season and good friends will suddenly not speak to each other if they are from a competing region.

“Grown men will cry, sometimes for days if their horse loses,” Salvatore informed us.

“Oh wow, they really bet a lot of money on that race, huh?” I replied.

Salvatore looked at me as if I was insane. “Money?” he said, “Yes, they may lose money but that is not why they cry! They cry because they have lost their …” after searching for the correct English word, he finally thrust his hands up in exasperation and said, “Honor!”

Denis and I walked all around the ancient streets of Siena and San Gimignano and apparently, in the spirit of Il Palio, Denis decided to always be about twenty lengths on front of me.

Then, on about day two, where we find ourselves today, I realize that, though it’s nice to have that moment of smugness in the airport, is the payoff really worth it? I am about to don a pair of tights that have been washed in the sink twice, with shampoo, and gave given my ass a very angry rash as a result.

The thing I really wish I brought was my laptop. I’m writing this entry on my phone. I hope to be able to add photos. This is a test.

Some of you might recall our trip to Positano, Italy last year, when we stayed at Le Sirenuse, a breathtakingly beautiful hotel that is perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. During the tourist season, the world comes to Le Sirenuse, and the owners, Antonio, Carla and Franco Sersales, have hosted many famous and glamourous people over the years. During the off-season, they like to travel to the most remote regions of the world, because they are avid wanderers, ever-hungry for the sights, sounds and tastes of foreign lands.

Well, yesterday, I received an email from Antonio who told me that he has decided to start a blog. It can be found here and you will see that in addition to being an amazing business owner and photographer, Antonio is a beautiful, beautiful writer. He and Carla are such lovers of art and language that they host an annual writer’s conference that is run by Dani Shapiro – yes, the very same Dani Shapiro who will be doing a live chat with us in a couple of weeks about her book, Devotion.

Anyway, check out Antonio’s blog, and leave a comment, either in English or Italian.

I apologize for my silence the past few days.  Very caught up in certain goings on in the city. But I’m back!

Oh, by the way, Barbara sent me some great pictures of the first annual Ann Leary Blogapalooza, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to convert her photos so that I can post them here. But I will figure it out. Also, I’ve been quite touched by all the warm comments to Cheryl. I hope she’s taking it easy.

Finally, an excerpt from an article John Steinbeck wrote about Positano for Harper’s Bazaar in 1953.
“Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone. Its houses climb a hill so steep it would be a cliff except that stairs are cut in it. I believe that whereas most house foundations are vertical, in Positano they are horizontal. The small curving bay of unbelievably blue and green water lips gently on a beach of small pebbles. There is only one narrow street and it does not come down to the water. Everything else is stairs, some of them as steep as ladders. You do not walk to visit a friend, you either climb or slide.
”

I am thrilled to have found a site, online, that has posted all of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad, unabridged, chapter by chapter. Below is a little sample, but you should really read the rest of the chapter because Twain goes on to write about how outrageously he and a few of his friends begin to abuse their hapless Italian guide by playing the part of the stupidest Americans to have ever set foot on foreign soil.

Anyway, here is the excerpt about Michaelangelo:
In this connection I wish to say one word about Michael Angelo Buonarotti. I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo–that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture–great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast–for luncheon–for dinner–for tea–for supper–for between meals. I like a change, occasionally. In Genoa, he designed every thing; in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In Florence, he painted every thing, designed every thing, nearly, and what he did not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone. In Pisa he designed every thing but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But, here–here it is frightful. He designed St. Peter’s; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope’s soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima–the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it! Dan said the other day to the guide, “Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!”
I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead.

Some shots from Capri:

And another from Pompeii:

Out of Pompeii
by William Wilfred Campbell

She lay, face downward, on her beaded arm,
In this her new, sweet dream of human bliss,
Her heart within her fearful, fluttering, warm,
Her lips yet pained with love’s first timorous kiss.
She did not note the darkening afternoon,
She did not mark the lowering of the sky
O’er that great city. Earth had given its boon
Unto her lips, love touched her and passed by.

Usually, before a trip to Europe, I like to reread one of my favorite books – Mark Twain’s classic, Innocents Abroad. Yes, I borrowed this title for my book, An Innocent, A Broad. If you’ve never read Twain’s book, I implore you to do so, (likewise mine).

Mark Twain took a tour of Europe and the Middle East in the 1860s, during a time when it was all the rage for American “society” people to take cruises abroad and he kept a travel log, which was published, I believe, in installments, during his travels. It’s very, very funny in parts, because it is always written from the perspective of a very wise, but sometimes provincial man – Mark Twain himself, and he makes fun of his fellow American travelers as well as the many guides and merchants they encounter in their travels. Today, I managed to find, online, the chapter in which he describes his visit to Pompeii. It is here. I can’t urge you strongly enough to read it.

We visited Pompeii today and shared Mark’s Twain’s surprise at the vastness of the ruined city and were impressed by the rather marvelous quality of life that these ancient Pompeiians enjoyed. They had spas, bathhouses, theaters, brothels. In one of the brothels, there remain a series of numbered frescoes of various sexual acts; a sort of menu of delights from which patrons might choose. These are Kama Sutra-like paintings of sexual positions and couplings that, though I photographed them, I’m too modest to post them here. I had no idea people did this kind of thing back then. I really didn’t think people in my parents’ generation did them. Honestly, I had, until today, believed that Denis and I invented one of the positions. We had no idea that it was quite commonplace 2000 years ago. I will post one of the paintings, as it has me completely baffled. It seems that a serpent’s tail was used in sex play some how, but for the life of me I can’t see the fun.

After Pompeii, we had lunch at Don Alfonso, where the food was incredibly delicious. All the vegetables are grown on their organic farm and they have a very famous wine cellar that you climb down and down and down until you reach a chamber that has existed since the 10th Century.

The owner, Olivia Laccarino, was unbelievably gracious and gave us a tour of her beautiful establishment and a bottle of their organic olive oil to take home with us. Grazie Olivia!

You wake up each morning to the warm music of a Mediterranean coastal village – the distant sing-song voices of children from the beach below, the quiet droning of motor boats and then the quaint clap of bells from a nearby chapel. You open the doors to your terrace and the sky and the sea are all around. The sea is blue. So, so blue. The sea here in paradise is the deepest and truest blue I have ever seen in nature.

In the mornings, Denis works on his computer for awhile. I gorge myself on fresh fruit. I bathe in a tub that seems to float above the sea. I slather self-tanner on my skin and then flit around the room naked, for fear of staining the white upholstery in this delicious blue and white room. I fret about the children and worry that my life is too blessed, that tragedy will soon follow. Then I put on a robe, walk out onto the terrace, drink it all in and delude myself that I’m worthy. That’s how we begin each day, here in paradise.

Here’s more stuff you do in paradise: You are ferried about in a Riva Aquarama called the Five and Fifty – a wooden speedboat that is so retro and sleek and chic that you cannot help but feel like you’re a 60s Bond girl when you leap aboard (aided by the strong hands of handsome dock hands). You loll about in the sun, on the cushioned stern of this, the sexiest of all boats, then weigh anchor and dive into the deep blue and gasp at the coolness of the sea and at the suddenly ominous walls of ancient volcanoes that rise up above and all around. You spend the entire day at sea, probing grottos, arriving at ports, leaping from boat to dock, and scampering up ramps into restaurants where you suck prawns barefoot and tell your new friends your innermost secrets. Then back aboard the boat to speed off to Capri; to open-air taxis, winding, shaded sidewalks, dizzying sun and then, shade and a cool breeze and a drink. Back aboard the Five and Fifty to Positano. That’s what you do in paradise.

And now I must reveal the name of the hotel where we’re staying, as we are only here another day and I can’t keep it a secret for another minute. It’s Le Sirenuse, this perfect place, owned by Carla, Antonio and Franco Sersale. Here they are in a photo I lifted from a travel magazine. Carla and Antonio have been our Positano hosts and they are just as fun and glamorous in person as they look.

I don’t know that we’ve ever felt such an instant rapport with another couple, but Carla and Antonio have this incredible energy that’s seriously contagious. They’ve lived all over the world and are just fascinating creatures. They met when they were twelve! Here on the beach in Positano! They’ve traveled and lived on many continents, and share a most admirable love of literature and art and their beautiful home of Positano.

Starfish
by Eleanor Lerman

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who says, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Today we took a little tour of the Amalfi Coast. The entire coastline is dotted with towers which were lookouts for North African pirates who would occasionally raid the peaceful fishing villages along the shores. If a watchman saw a pirate ship he would light a lantern that could be seen by towers in the next villages, and the fishermen would know to head for the hills.

Here are some pretty scenes in Ravello:

Then we wandered around Amalfi. Here is the Cathedral of Amalfi:

When we entered the Cathedral, a man walked toward me with a lovely shawl. I thought that he was selling it, and I admired it politely, but told him that I really wasn’t in the market for a shawl. He was adamant and I admit, I got a little huffy. I wasn’t going to be hoodwinked into buying a scarf, I was there to see the beautiful Cathedral of Amalfi, if he didn’t mind! He did mind, very much. He wasn’t selling the scarves. He pointed angrily at a placard that said, both in Italian and in English, that the Cathedral is a house of God and that those entering are asked to show respect by not having exposed shoulders or chests, or wearing shorts. This is what I was wearing:

Yup, if you look carefully, you can see my underpants sticking out above the top of my shorts.
The man was speaking rapid Italian but Denis and I swear by his words and gestures that he was suggesting we leave the premises and instead visit another place called Our Lady of Perpetual Fellatio. I apologized profusely and donned a sweatshirt and the man allowed us entrance to the beautiful cloisters that led into the cathedral:

Finally, we dined in a beautiful restaurant in Amalfi. We asked the waitress to take our photo. It felt a little corny. But this summer we celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and this trip is meant to be a sort of second honeymoon. Our first was by car. In Canada. We stayed in cold, musty B&Bs and maxed out our only credit card. Still, it was great.

So is this:

Amalfi
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.
In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.
‘T is a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?
Lord of vineyards and of lands,
Far above the convent stands.
On its terraced walk aloof
Leans a monk with folded hands,
Placid, satisfied, serene,
Looking down upon the scene
Over wall and red-tiled roof;
Wondering unto what good end
All this toil and traffic tend,
And why all men cannot be
Free from care and free from pain,
And the sordid love of gain,
And as indolent as he.
Where are now the freighted barks
From the marts of east and west?
Where the knights in iron sarks
Journeying to the Holy Land,
Glove of steel upon the hand,
Cross of crimson on the breast?
Where the pomp of camp and court?
Where the pilgrims with their prayers?
Where the merchants with their wares,
And their gallant brigantines
Sailing safely into port
Chased by corsair Algerines?
Vanished like a fleet of cloud,
Like a passing trumpet-blast,
Are those splendors of the past,
And the commerce and the crowd!
Fathoms deep beneath the seas
Lie the ancient wharves and quays,
Swallowed by the engulfing waves;
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls;
Hidden from all mortal eyes
Deep the sunken city lies:
Even cities have their graves!
This is an enchanted land!
Round the headlands far away
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay
With its sickle of white sand:
Further still and furthermost
On the dim discovered coast
Paestum with its ruins lies,
And its roses all in bloom
Seem to tinge the fatal skies
Of that lonely land of doom.
On his terrace, high in air,
Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these,
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow,
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut trees;
Nothing else he heeds or hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon
In the happy afternoon;
Slowly o’er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting, fathoms down,
Into caverns cool and deep!
Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white,
And the river cased in ice,
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea.

Today, the owners of this exquisite hotel took us out for a ride on their vintage, wood-hulled speedboat.

We toured the coastline:

Then we pulled up to a dock and walked barefoot up a ramp and into an open-air restaurant that served food that was so fresh that I believe the crustaceans actually snuck up the ramp after us and leapt into the cooking pots. We ate and ate and ate. Then we motored back. That’s the back of Denis’s big head. Where he keeps the giant brain.

Okay, here’s a final, very telling photo. And a poem, which contains a clue.

The Mermaid Poem
by William Butler Yeats

A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.