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Dinner with Franklin

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I love the way Italians enjoy their food. After visiting all my recommended restaurants in Verona, I sat down at my favorite place, Enoteca Can Grande, with my friend and guide, Franklin. We let the chef, Giuliano, bring us whatever he wanted. Franklin’s a local. He knows the cuisine. And just to see Franklin swoon over the food made the evening even better than the impact of Giuliano’s fine food and wine. Here are a few of Franklin’s comments as the food came and we ate (perhaps some a bit impolite, but all from the stomach end of the heart):

With the first of many small plates, Franklin is delighted. “Raw Piedmont beef, carne cruda. It is like seeing the smile of a beautiful woman after ten years. You never forget her.”

I ask, “Sublime is an Italian word, no?” He says, “Yes, soo-blee-may…this is sublime.” The wine is Amarone della Valpolicella. It is sublime.

Giuliano brings a plate of various cold cuts — glistening in a way that lets you know it’s nothing but the best — and we ponder: If you had to choose between salami and cheese in life, which would you choose? Both agree that it would be a terrible choice…but cheese. Then we nibble the mortadella with truffle, and it complicates the matter. Mortadella is the local baloney — not a high-end meat. But with the black truffle, it’s exquisite. Imagine calling spam exquisite…just add truffle.

And if you had to choose between white and red wine? Franklin says, “I used to smoke, and I compared white wine and red like cigarettes and a good Cuban cigar. And I enjoyed my Cuban cigars.” Then he gets distracted by the herb decorating the next little mozzarella dish. After tasting a sprig, he says, “Yes, fresh… It’s normally served dried. The chef is a genius, brilliant with mozzarella.”

Then comes the best polenta I’ve ever tasted. Italian cuisine is like a religion — and it’s the quality of the ingredients that’s most sacred. Polenta comes in varieties, like white bread and whole-grain bread. This is the darker polenta integrale, using the entire corn. And it comes with anchovies. Anchovies and polenta go together…a good marriage. It’s the simple things — the anchovies, the olive oil, the polenta integrale, and the proper matching of flavors — that can bring the most joy at the table.

Noticing how Franklin polishes every plate, I say, “You even eat the speckles.” He says, “Yes, I would feel like a sinner not to.” And, sipping his wine, he adds, “And to not finish the Amarone — Dante would have to create a new place in hell. Mortal sin.”

Then comes the pumpkin ravioli. I hold the warm and happy tire of my full tummy and say, “Basta.” Giovanni, looking at my Amarone, realizes we need another bottle. He warns us, “Next I bring you a small cheese course.”

Franklin says, “I’m not so religious, but for this cheese, with Amarone, I fall on my knees.” I agree, saying, “In cheese we trust.” He compliments my economy of words and repeats, “Yes, in cheese we trust.” I say, “This cheese plate takes dessert to new heights.” Franklin, playing with the voluptuous little slices, says, “Even if we do not talk, with these cheeses we have a good conversation.”

I support my happy head with my hand as Franklin pours the last of our second bottle into my glass and we move into the parmesan and the gorgonzola. Franklin, taking the last dribble into his glass, says, “If this was my only wine, I could be monogamous.”

It occurs to me we must have tasted thirty different ingredients — all of them top-quality and in harmonious combinations. Franklin again marvels at how the chef was creative and unpredictable without garish combinations — no gorgonzola ice cream.

Giuliano asks if I’d like anything else. I ask, “Dov’è il letto?” Franklin agrees and says, “Yes, a good restaurant should come with a bed.”

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Mortadellaville — Deadly Promotional Writing

Anyone running a business needs to generate promotional writing. I certainly do. My challenge is to get beyond fluff and use concrete descriptions to help travelers smartly navigate all the superlatives that are busy trying to hook us.

I was recently wading through some tourist propaganda about a region I have never appreciated much, and it occurred me how much I disdain promotional writing that says nothing. The passage below is typical of the raw material I need to dredge through in my work. (And then they cap it all with a reference to UNESCO, which long-time readers of this blog know is one tourism brag that makes me turn the other way.)

The passage I’ve excerpted below is the kind of writing that turns tourist brains to mozzarella and eventually causes them to stop reading anything. (Many locals understand my frustration. In fact, the Italian phrase for this kind of prose is aria fritta — fried air.) And this is the kind of writing that inspires me to have every sentence I write say something of value. I changed the place names here. But you could drop in names from just about anywhere in southern Europe and this is what you’ll find:

Emaginella: A Treasure Chest of Art and History The most pleasant surprises are often the most unexpected ones and there is no greater surprise for the visitor to Emaginella than to discover how much beauty lies in its art cities: cities where hospitality reigns supreme and where a warm welcome is not just a slogan. Cities where you can find accommodation to suit every need from the charming historical residence to the farm holiday, from the luxury restaurant to the small country inn. Where it is possible to marry the pleasures of the spirit to those of the palate, where you can tickle your fancy for shopping and move from one town to another in a short space of time. The art cities of Emaginella, the geographic and historic crossroads of Mediterranea, have defended their past and preserved art treasures in their palaces, in their churches and in the collections of which are now proudly shown to the public. The whole region, from Rimshot to Placencha, is a limitless work of art. Imagine a large finely embroidered tapestry where each inlay is a village, a fortress, a city. It is impossible to explain the beauty of these places. The emotions that you feel standing in front of a fresco or a mosaic or entering the shadowy darkness of a Romanesque cathedral can only be experienced at first hand. Imagine yourselves in Mortadellaville, one of the most beautiful of all Mediterranean cities, walking along the medieval city center streets following in the footsteps of Montesquieu, Goethe, and Byron. Mortadellaville is the heart of the region, a city of porticoes and medieval views, of towers and the oldest university in Europe. Then there is Biscottua with its Duomo that the historian Le Goff defines as “one of the most beautiful examples of Romanesque in Europe” and that UNESCO has named as “Heritage of Mankind.”

And on and on…

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You Say Padua, They Say Padova

Each day as I research my guidebook, I check each fact in the chapter and fill the pages with my pencil scratchings. Anything substantial to add to the book I write into my Moleskine notebook. Back at the hotel, while it’s still fresh and I can decipher my scribbles, I enter all the changes into my laptop file.

Here’s an example of the major changes (other than tiny fixes marked directly into the guidebook) that I came home with after a busy day in Padua yesterday. Now, before I catch my train to Verona, I massage these ideas into the Padua chapter for the 2011 edition.

I deleted all the hotels near the station (as that area has grown seedy, and I’m excited about the ease with which travelers can get oriented using simply the town’s single tram, which makes it easy to get into the center). And my two top-end restaurants are deleted (one too pretentious — I ate there upon arrival; and the other going out of business next year — unable to survive “the crisis”). Therefore, I have several new hotels and restaurants to add for 2011. Here are my rough notes:

Baptistery — mind-blowing art fills the dome: working for private family so politically correct to not threaten or offend the family’s allies, especially the Church. Giotto was bolder, supported by Scrovegni family and Franciscans. Baptistery, while done later, is conservative, Giotto’s Scrovegni was progressive.

Piazza dei Signori, clock c. 1400 on former palace of ruling family, lion with unfurled wings is aggressive, reminded locals of Venetian determination to assert control. Today can be seen as Veneto’s independent spirit against Rome. Italy’s north (Veneto and Lombardia) is tired of subsidizing the south.

Clothing market 8-1 daily In produce market: very seasonal selection…one glance and locals can know the month, feel the passion for real food here. Merchants give recipe advice to shoppers. Wonderful presentation.

Don’t miss the indoor stalls adjacent the outdoor market. H-shaped shop arcades = sensual experience.

Free audio tour from TI (loaner MP3) or download (at www.turismopadova.it), at all TI. Five well-done routes. I-PADova.

In university: Off fascist courtyard, Fascist art stairway, curiosity is OK within reason, decor celebrates knowledge, art, and science, frescos from 1930s. Pasticceria Racca, exquisite selection of chocolates and treats in back with coffee and tiny seats, kitty corner Piazza Cavour from Cafe Pedrocchi at Via Calvi 8.

Enoteca Santa Lucia provides a modern alternative for a drink or meal. With a New York jazz bar sense of style they serve fine wine by the glass with generous free tapas around the bar or with seating on the square or modern Mediterranean meals in the cellar with mod decor (€10 pastas, €20 secondi, Piazza Cavour at the corner of via Calvi, tel. 049.655.545, closed Sunday).

Ristorante da Giorgio is a respected fixture in town for dressy white-tablecloth dining and good international cuisine with a passion for bean soup, fish soup, cod, and squid and a respect for vegetarians (€12 pastas, €25 secondi, meals from 12:00 and from 19:30, closed Sun, Via d. Manin 8, tel. 049.836.0973, reservations at night are smart).

Think like buses don’t exist. Use Tram — there’s only one, see tracks anywhere in town… you know it’s the tram, direction Pontevigodarzere or Cap Sud. Stops that matter: Stazione FS (train station), Eremitani (Scrovegni chapel), Ponti Romani (old center, market square, university), Tito Livio (Ghetto, old center, Hotel Majestic Toscanelli), Santo (Basilica of Saint Anthony and neighborhood hotels).

Upon arrival: Leave station, 30 meters right at foot of bridge is tram stop (shady characters at night around here). Ticket from stand in front of station or machines at stops (€1.10 for 75 minutes, trams come every 8 minutes).

In Basilica of Saint Anthony: Marble reliefs around tomb busy with pilgrims (beef up descriptions).
Series made through the 1500s. Renaissance architectural 3-D and realism.
1. above Padua cityscape circa 1500, open door illustrates real math of new ability to show perspective. Notice intricate frames, celebrations of life.
2. notice musculature, emotion, determination in faces of loved ones, wound of dead woman.

3. Above is palace of justice with no change in 500 years.
Saint Anthony resurrects young man.
4. by Sansovino, Basilica exterior above, girl dies, see faces: mom distraught, grandma has seen it all. Unfairness of life, young woman dead.
5. fisherman holds net sadly having retrieved drowned boy, mom looks to Anthony who blessed and revived boy.
Across from #5 is the actual tome, it reads “Corpus S. Antonii,” prayer letters dropped behind black iron grill, thoughtful lighting.
6. The miracle of the miser’s heart.
7. Anthony holds the foot 0f a young man who confessed to kicking his mother.
8. Anthony as a child tosses the glass which breaks the marble floor but not the glass, representing his strong faith even as a child (v.v. St. Francis — ruffian as a teen).
9. Dad accuses wife of cheating and wife asks Anthony to identify baby’s father. Anthony asks child who speaks and says assuring all that husband is his real dad and mother was not messing around.

Between 8 and 9 enter room, Above relics is Glorification of St Anthony, a cloud of angels and putti celebrate his presence in heaven, jubilation all around, a joyful explosion of babies to left and right of baroque fantasy.

Osteria L’Anfora is a classic place serving classic dishes in a rustic fun-loving space. The ruffian decor and its woodiness, and the fact that it’s a popular hangout for a pre-meal drink, can distract from the fact that they take food seriously and serve it at good prices (€8 pastas, €12 secondi, €2 cover, closed Sunday, Via dei Soncin 13, tel. 049.656.629, no reservations taken).

Bar dei Osei is a very simple sandwich bar with some of the best seats in town in the Fruit Market Square. While locals love their delicate tramezzini (white bread sandwiches with crusts cut off, €1.80), I’d choose their grilled porchetta–roasted pork–sandwiches. The 2-foot long mother lode waits on the counter for you to say how big a slice you’d like. Wines are listed on the board (Piazza della Fruitta 1, tel. 049.875.9606, 7:00-21:00, closed Sun). With fast, cheap meal and drink in hand, grab a seat and enjoy the market scene.

Hotel Belludi 37 is a slick, borderline pretentious place renting 15 modern rooms shoehorned into an old building. Decor is dark, woody, fresh, and stylish (S-€57, Sb-€80, D-€90, Db-€120, bigger Db-€135, ask for 10% Rick Steves discount, air-con, Wi-Fi, free mini-bar, prices include optional €7 breakfast, a block from the Santo tram stop, via Luca Belludi 37, tel. 049.665.633, fax 049.658.685, info@belludi37.it, www.belludi37.it).

Albergo Verdi is a modern little place crammed into an old building at the edge of the old town not near the tram. While public spaces are very tight, the 14 rooms are modern and spacious (Db-€90-€100, extra person €30, air-con, elevator, a couple blocks behind Piazza Duomo at via Dondi dall’Orologio 7, tel. 049.836.4163, www.albergoverdipadova.it, info@albergoverdipadova.it).

Around here you don’t say he or she has a big nose, you say “naso importante.”

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As the Ash Settles

Today, I finished my Venice work, checked out of my hotel, and — as I normally do when leaving Venice — walked across the entire town as if hiking through the mountains, with my backpack on my back. It’s a half-hour walk. I leave an hour early, intending to enjoy a photo safari along the way. I put my day bag inside my big bag so it hangs on me heavier than usual, but my hands are free for the photo fun.

I walked by the blue signs all over town pointing to the hospital. (My hotel was near the hospital, so I always had blue signs pointing me home.) I walked by the hotel where my friend Ilaria works, and recalled how sad she was that her dog Molly had died. For a decade, I never saw Ilaria without Molly. She died nearly a year ago, but in my guidebook listing of the hotel, it still mentions “faithful Molly.” So my readers always ask Ilaria about Molly, and it makes her cry. Like everyone else, I asked about Molly. And Ilaria cried. As I’ve updated my guidebooks over the years, I’ve had to pay my last respects to both pets and people with my laptop’s delete button. It’s always sad. But Molly is now gone from the book, and Ilaria will have fewer reminders of her loss.

Arriving at the Venice train station, I saw something I’ve never seen before: a ragtag line of travelers stretching from the station all the way to the Grand Canal. They were waiting to book train tickets out of town. And it occurred to me that needless confusion accompanies natural disasters like the Iceland volcano eruption.

These people were like refugees. They’ll be standing there for the better part of the day, trying to get out. But just yesterday, I dropped into a travel agency (as recommended in my book to avoid the congestion that comes with even a normal day at the train station) and, for a €3 fee, purchased my train ticket (Eurostar express to Bologna, and then a slow connection to Ravenna). Anyone can book tickets either online or from travel agencies…and avoid the chaos at the station.

I flew from London to Venice the day before the eruption. In the days since, I’ve talked with countless hoteliers and tourists about the frustration this has brought. Of the 50 hotels I visited in Venice, about 40 of them had rooms available. Still, people were saying they couldn’t find rooms. My understanding is that in most places, there are not actually more people than usual — just as many can’t get in as can’t get out. The hotel/customer churn has just stopped. Hoteliers I met were kind and helpful to people, sympathizing with them, working with them, and helping them manage. My understanding is that most hotels were keeping only the first night’s deposit of pre-paid rooms from people who couldn’t get here. My standard operating procedure as I research is to pretend I need a room like a regular tourist in order to be quoted the true asking price. The eruption made my work frustrating: I couldn’t get an honest room price. Hotels were deeply discounting rooms because there were so many beds unfilled by people unable to get here.

The eruption is a headache for people on all sides of the tourism industry. Obviously it’s a pain for travelers. But remember, it’s a pain for travel providers, too. Airlines, tour operators, hotels, and tour guides all work on a tight margin. Spring is a time to come out of a slow winter and make enough money to be viable. When all planes are grounded, everyone loses. And, while businesses with integrity will be as fair as they can be, they can’t absorb everything. Airlines are letting people rebook with great flexibility, but they’ll never be able to fly the planes they once sold out. Tour companies (like ours) will let people move to another tour for no loss, but they’ll never be able to do the tours they once sold out. And travelers will be all packed up and (especially if inflexible with vacation time) unable to go.

 Travelers will be losing some money, and you can’t blame providers for padding their fallout. That’s why travel insurance exists. Trip interruption and cancelation insurance costs about 5 percent of what you’re insuring (e.g., $200 to cover a $4,000 flight and tour). I never get it because I don’t think there’s a one-in-20 chance I’ll need it. But if I end up needing it, it’s my own fault. I gambled and went without insurance. I generally win. This time I lost. Ash from volcanic eruptions is legally considered a weather problem, and that’s something good travel insurance covers. If you’ve lost some money and are upset about that — if I may be blunt — you need to get over it. You should have purchased insurance. That’s what it’s for.

The media will likely give prospective travelers a skewed idea of what it’s like in Europe with the ash problem. My feeling is that, once you’re here (and out of the airport), things are normal. While the train station was jammed, I was on a train for three hours today…empty seats all around me. Most people I’ve met are thankful they’re stuck here (on vacation) rather than at home (wishing they were on vacation).

The sky is blue. The only ash I’ve seen is on the Web. And everyone around me seems to be simply enjoying Italy.

I’m in Ravenna now. Much as I was enchanted by the elegant decay and musty charm of traffic-free Venice, it’s refreshing to be back in the real world. And, while Venice is viable only with tourism, Ravenna is a slice of Italy that seems oblivious to tourism. Prices are a third less than in Venice. Ravenna is the bike-friendly city of Italy. Hotels give their guests loaner bikes. I just did my hotel and restaurant rounds by bike — rolling by 1,400-year-old churches that, like brick fortresses, hold the world’s most exquisite mosaics. (Tomorrow, I’ll see them. My favorite church is so old, it depicts Jesus ancient Roman-style — clean-shaven — on one side, and the bearded medieval Jesus we know on the other. That holy shave marks the cusp of the ancient/medieval art world.)

Finishing my chores, I sat down to dinner in a jolly place that felt like Ravenna’s community dining room. I had to say out loud, “Life is good.”

(All this volcano news reminds me of an old joke: Know how to catch an Icelandic moose? Dig a hole. Fill it with ashes. Line it with peas. When the moose comes to take a pea, you kick him in the ash hole.)

If you’re currently traveling through Europe (or trying to travel through Europe), share your own stories on my Graffiti Wall’s Icelandic Eruption forum.

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Venice: Where Stuck Is a Blessing

Being in Venice with Europe’s airports shut down is like the art/cuisine/history equivalent of being snowed in at the cabin. The city is filled with two kinds of travelers — those who weren’t flying anywhere anyway, and those stuck. And those stuck are of two sorts — those anxious and upset, and those resigned to the fact that there’s nothing they can do about it…and are thankful that at least they’re in a great place to be stuck.

Imagine the clumsy flip-flopping going on, with all the people without hotel reservations who are stuck here filling in rooms for people with reservations who are not showing up. The train station was mobbed with poor souls waiting to buy tickets somewhere — long lines that hardly moved.

I’m having such fun here, and such a rich research experience, that I still shudder to think I missed being stuck in London by less than a day when I flew out just before the Iceland eruption.

I’ve met lots of Americans on the streets here. I enjoy reminding them that if they make the most of this opportunity to make their predicament a blessing, in five years they’ll remember the eruption as the reason they had such a great experience in Venice.

I spent my first two full days here not laying eyes on St. Mark’s Square. It’s the back lanes where this enchanting city is most enchanting. Today I needed to go to the place where the causeway from the mainland hits the island to check out the parking garage situation and see the new “People Mover” monorail (which opens this week and will shuttle people from the big car park to Piazza Roma). The traffic on Piazza Roma hit me like a big fart. As I dodged traffic on Piazza Roma, the contrast hit me. I realized what a charming world the Venetians enjoy, with no traffic noise and completely owning their byways as pedestrians.

I’ve spent three days pounding what must be my favorite pavement in Europe. Guides are sharing insights: Donkey meat sausage, asino, is a local treat. A many-generations-old sign cut into the fish market wall reminds merchants that sardines must be 7 centimeters long and Peocio (mussels) must be 3 cm long. Then someone graffitied Il Mio 3.7 cm (I’m sure it’s a rude joke, but I’m not that good with metric to know). Benetton just purchased the huge post office fronting the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge and will turn it into some kind of shopping mall.

There are now too many hotels in Venice, and prices are going down. With big hotels having to deeply discount rooms with Web booking services, most of my recommended hotels are lowering their guidebook prices for 2011. But prices are actually meaningless because things will fluctuate with demand, and demand is so unpredictable these days. While in the past I was quite exacting on getting the price, now I’m getting a ballpark price and encouraging travelers to email several and see who’s giving the best deals.

There’s a new “historic play” in town called the Venice Show. My hunch was that it was cheesy, but I needed to see some of it (as it’s heavily advertised, and hotels will push anything that nets them a kickback) to give it a yea or nay in my guidebook. My guide friend and I talked the girl at the desk into letting us pop in free for a bit of the $50 performance. She asked the woman who owned the show for permission, and she said in Italian (not knowing my friend spoke it), “I hope they’re not trying to screw us.” Not letting that sway my critique of the show, we watched half an hour of it and left thinking that it is she (with such lofty promotions) who is trying to screw tourists out of $50 for 80 miserable minutes of cheesy theater.

The buzz among music-loving travelers here is that the €25 Baroque music concerts performed by musicians in black-and-white suits (Intrepreti Veneziani is the best ensemble) are great — and those performed by musicians in powdered wigs and leotards are more spectacle.

My work highlight so far in Venice has been trying out two of my audio tours. I got out my iPhone and let myself guide me down the Grand Canal and through the Frari Church. Each tour worked perfectly — better than I dared to hope. In fact, sitting on the front seat of the vaporetto enjoying the narration of the palaces floating by was a delight. (It reminded me of how I used to commandeer the front view seats of the same slow boat down the Grand Canal back in the 1970s as a young tour guide and bark out a cruder version of that same narration to my groups.) And it was also a treat to jump off the boat to tour the Frari Church — so rich in art still exactly where those Venetian artistic superstars designed it to be enjoyed centuries ago — and enjoy it for my first time without needing to read from a guidebook.

In the Frari, I met a couple from California with iPhone buds and me in their ears, too. They had used my audio tours in Rome, Florence, and now here, and reported they worked great. Considering that we just released eight new tours (for Rome and London), I’m relieved the vision of these free tours being a big help to travelers is now a reality.

My new taste treat: Sgroppino, a traditional Venetian drink of squeezed lemon juice, lemon gelato, and vodka designed to finish off a meal. I hope all the people stuck in this town can find a new favorite local drink. And I hope those at home with trips threatened have happy news in the coming days.