When we first thought about coming to Italy in August, we worried a lot about how hot it was going to be. As it turned out, we need not have been concerned. It is warm during the day, but it cools off at night. It has been lovely here. And it has really been bad in southern Germany, which we just left. All that rain has caused lots of flooding there. The environmental factor we should have worried about in Italy was not the weather – it was the tourists. There are what seem like millions of tourists in Florence. In fact, there were so many tourists in Florence… Tell you what. Let’s start at the beginning. We were in Firenza in 1995 or 1996. Last time we were here, we tried to get into the Uffizi Art Gallery but it was Monday, and it was closed. This time we determined that it would be our first stop. We succeeded in visiting the gallery, but it was an ordeal.

We got on the bus at the campground and were delivered to the riverfront about a five-block walk from the gallery. The Uffizi is huge. The entrance was so far away that we could not see it. Not until an hour of waiting later did we find an electronic sign saying that the line was between two and three hours long, except if you had made a reservation beforehand. This was an odd time to tell us. We already had an hour invested. As a result, we decided to stick it out. We did not get into the building for two additional hours and fifteen minutes. Never stood in a line so long before. We will never do it again.

The collection is justly famous and interesting even if you go through backwards as we did. That was because the toilets were at the end and after over three hours on our feet getting to them was of first priority. They were so far from where we entered that we did not want to return and start at the beginning. We cannot say that it was a pleasure to finally walk through. There is very sparse seating throughout. Almost everything was poorly displayed. Lighting was very, very dim, the paintings were displayed behind either glass or plastic panels, and some were so high you had to crane your neck to see them perhaps 10 feet away. There were very few places to sit and look.

When we reached the beginning, we took the lift downstairs and found ourselves in the entrance rather than in the exit. The young lady in charge immediately told us we should go back up and go through the exit – only to be confronted with a very tense and exhausted old lady who said "Absolutely not. I am not walking another step." They let us go out the "In" door!

As we said, there are a lot of tourists in Florence, so there are going to be lines. But a tourist friendly Uffizi could make some changes. At least they could put the electronic bulletin board in a place where it would warn you about the length of the line before you’d been standing an hour.

That experience changed our choices. From that day on, if there was a long line, we went somewhere else. As a matter of fact, instead of viewing more paintings and sculptures the next day, we found a place to cut Adelle’s hair and discovered a really wonderful food market. Can’t complain about that. (Picture 1 shows a tiny part of this wonderful Florentine food market.)

In a cathedral museum in Florence there is another thing we wanted to see. It was a Pieta done by Michaelangelo when he was 80 years old. Apparently, a piece of the marble broke in the wrong way, and he never finished it…but one of his associates did. This Pieta has Nicodemus as well as Mary and Jesus. The face of Nicodemus is that of Michaelangelo. The statue was among the most beautiful we’ve ever seen, affecting us both. (Picture 2 shows this Michaelangelo Pieta.)

The campground in Florence is worth a bit of description. It was located high on a hilltop overlooking the city. The view was spectacular. (Picture 3 shows the view of Florence from the campground.) One could actually walk down the hill, cross a bridge over the Arno, and enter the city. But for older people, like us, there was also a bus that stopped just outside the gate. The campground’s sites were spread among olive trees with lots of olives growing. Our site was shaded by a large one of these. All facilities on the campground were reached by walking and climbing stairs—to the lavatories, the bar, the internet point and the market, which was the best supplied market we ever have had the privilege of shopping in. This fine campground had only two defects. One was the high cost of the internet service and the other was that the electricity was 2-3 amps. That was enough to run our fridge, and our tiny fan. It was not enough to run a microwave or even a toaster.

Siena is not far from Firenze. That was our next stop. We found the campground with only a little bit of trouble by following the too-small signs through the city. It was very close to the city – but it was difficult to get there. Siena is a gem of a medieval city in the center of a much larger modern city. A bus outside the campground took us in very close to the old city. We’ve been in Siena before, so we wanted to do things we hadn’t done the previous trip, but first we had to walk to the old part of the city, down a hill to the Campo. This is a large open round plaza where the famous Palio is run. We set out – and the first thing we saw was a huge post office. Since there were some cards to mail, we went in. It was not only a post office visit – it was an experience.

We needed three stamps. The post office had a electronic number system. There weren’t that many people there, but there were only three working windows, and every transaction seemed to take a very long time. It must have been half an hour before we were called, although many left before their turn. Ron decided that everyone had to tell their life story before they could buy a stamp. We watched these lengthy transactions until it was our turn. We must have stunned those clients holding the next number, because we were at the window and out of there in a minute. We continued on our walk to the Campo.

During the Palio, which took place earlier in the month, sand is brought into the Campo and horses race around its perimeter. The race is among riders representing different neighborhoods, each with its own colors. Banners of these different colors fly at buildings around the open space. Many of the flags were still flying around the now cleaned and very sunny Campo. The old city hall and an adjoining tower dominate one side of the circular open space. There were a lot of tourists in the open space but the area is so large that it did not appear to be crowded. Except for the cafes and the thin area formed by the shade of the tower. There were many tourists crowded together and seated directly on the pavement in this narrow shadow. If one leaves and returns at a later hour the shadow has moved and so have the tourists. That shaded area attracts seemingly the same number of people as it moves with the sun. (Picture 4 shows a part of the Campo with the shadow that provides s! hade for tourists.)

Not being willing to stand in line meant we couldn’t do some things, but there were a couple of places we did want to visit. In the old city hall, there is a city museum. Among the treasures there is a 14th century series of murals called "Good Government" and "Bad Government". It is a very beautiful declaration of anti-despotism, painted by a Sienese painter who died shortly thereafter during the Plague. The "Good Government panel showed the city as it was in the 1300’s with an assortment of citizens doing everyday things, a benevolent ruler and angelic council presiding. The city wall is shown at about the middle of the painting, and beyond that was the fertile countryside with farmers doing their thing. The "Bad Government" panel showed people warring, some corpses, some sick people and a tyrant on the throne with his devilish henchmen, the city in ruins, the fields barren. Taken together these murals seem to show that 14th century Italians recognized that many of their rulers were illegitimate warlords, and they resented that and had the idea that things should be better.

Next morning we started for Rome. Again, we used the autostrada. To get to there, we had to use a local road. That road was a little scary. It was a good four-lane road, running through a very deserted area, but it had no services, shoulders or emergency phones at all for over 50 kilometers (30 miles). Had we had a breakdown on that road we would have been in serious trouble. We have a cell phone but even with that, we probably would not have reached anyone who spoke English. Fortunately we had no problem and reached the autostrada where there are many roadside phones and also services. We haven’t been on other side roads in Italy, but we have spoken to other campers who told us that the side roads are in awful shape. We had stayed on the autostrada because there are so many mountains, and we are know that the main highways are designed to be as flat as possible. We don’t begrudge paying the tolls. It’s much easier than driving too slowly and holding up traffic on poorly maintained local roads full of Italian drivers, some of whom are simply suicidal.

The drive down from Florence passed through very pretty country. We began to see both the tall trees that grown straight up (like a spear) and the large umbrella pines. These pine trees branch out at the top like an open umbrella. Taken together these two help to form a distinctive image that means Italy to me. Now you throw in the hills on both sides of the roads and add those densely crowded towns at the very top of those hills, some of them with walls and towers, with perhaps a castle or two here and there, and this can only be Italy. After seeing that mural in Siena, we think those towns were built on hilltops to make them easier to defend against warlords from predatory cities and towns elsewhere in Italy.

On the way we passed a number of places with familiar names like Orvieto, where one of our favorite wines comes from.

Would you believe that there are about seven campgrounds in Rome? We picked one, and it turned out to be one of the nicest we’ve ever been in. It took a little bit of research in our camping books and a lot of dumb luck. We didn’t plan to stay in Rome too long. We have been there before and there is a lot to see in parts of Italy we have never visited. We stayed one and a half days. Our first half-day was a housekeeping day. We did laundry and went grocery shopping at the supermarket across the boulevard from the campground (reached by walking over a bridge). The next morning we took the campground’s shuttle bus to the Vatican. The line to get into the Vatican museum at 9:30 a.m. was thousands of people long. You have to go through this line and this museum to visit the Sistine Chapel. We had visited this huge museum and the Chapel before so we simply walked by – heading for St. Peter’s Basilica. Ron had been there, but Adelle had never seen it. At 10:30 when we got there, we just walked in. At 11:30 when we left, there were literally thousands of people lined up.

Everyone knows that the richly decorated St. Peter’s Basilica is one of the largest in the world, but it is more than that. Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor at a spot that an inlaid marble circle identifies. Michaelangelo designed the beautiful, huge dome. When we were here in 1995 a friend snapped a beautiful picture of the interior of the Basilica when a stream of sunlight created a visible beam from the top of the dome to the floor. Unfortunately there was no such beam this day. Ron took a picture of St. Peter’s feet. People caress his statue’s toes for luck and the result of this is that poor St Peter’s toes are slowly wearing away. We have a 1955 picture of them at home and we’ll try to compare the two pictures. (Picture 5 shows the dome and a small part of the nave of St. Peter’s Basilica.)

After lunch, we took a bus to the area where the Roman Forum, The Coliseum, and a lot of other ruins are located. (Picture 6 is a shot of The Emperor Constantine’s Arch and part of the Coloseum.) The big event of the day was Adelle’s realization that a straw hat would be cooler than the fabric one she was wearing. As we walked along, we saw a young sidewalk salesman take out some straw hats. Ron said let’s ask how much. The first one he showed us was more than we wanted to spend so we started to walk on. He clapped a hat on Adelle’s head and said "Five Euros" and made a sale. It was a major improvement in life! This hat shades the sun but allows air to circulate. We walked through the ruins and then took a bus home. There was nothing so interesting that we needed to stay another day.

We thought we would visit the Roman ruins at Ostia – which had once been Rome’s seaport. We left for a campground near the ruins, only to find that it had closed a year earlier, and that the other campgrounds did not have bus service to Ostia Antiqua – only to Rome. We weren’t interested in that so we simply took off for the part of Italy we have never seen. And that is why we are now in Pompeii, just south of Naples and on the southwest border of that large, round, green area on our map indicating Mount Vesuvius.

But that’s for the next letter.

Adelle & Ron

Authors of "Take Your RV to Europe, The Low-Cost Route to Long-Term Touring"

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