Rome and Lecce

ROME
September 2007

The first thing I noticed about Rome when I stepped out of the train was the balmy weather. The pharmacy sign near my hotel showed a temperature of 73°, and for the rest of my sojourn in Rome, it never varied more than a few degrees. Even in Lecce, far to the south, the temperature only rose to the upper 80s, and then, only for a couple of days. I trundled my bag over the rough cobblestones to my hotel, luxuriating in the balmy air, relieved to be headed for my hotel after a full day’s travel. I was staying in a new neighborhood, the Esquiline hill, near the train station, so I could make an easy, unhurried getaway to Lecce three days later.
My hotel, the Auditorium di Mecenate, is on the fourth floor of an apartment building. The elevator was one of those wire cages beloved of small European hotels. The clerk, a smiling Indian with gleaming white teeth, asked when I would like breakfast and assured me that it would be brought to my room. This, five steps off the lobby, was small, Spartan but stylish, and impeccably clean.
Even though I hadn’t slept on the plane for more than a few fugitive moments, I set out with great gusto, delighted to be back in my favorite city. Dusk was gathering, and my first thought was of food.
I strolled into the city’s historical center, reacquainting myself with cherished sights and streets. The Fountain of Trevi was glutted with thousands of tourists, as usual, but they can never detract from its voluptuous grandeur. The Pantheon at dusk was at its most ethereal, wonderfully quiet in spite of the crowds. The vast bowl of its dome absorbs sound like a sponge. Piazza Navona, my favorite public square, was sprinkled with dozens of artists selling their wares -- none particularly skillful and most fairly ghastly. The great attraction, Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers, was the unhappy prisoner of scaffolding and orange plastic webbing, with only the foot of the River god Amazon easily visible. Disappointing, I thought, but at least it’s under repair rather than being neglected. Rome does take care of its treasures.
I found a restaurant with an interesting tourist menu, L’Arcara, and upon settling down, realized that I’d eaten there before, on two earlier visits. The walls and napery are all the same color, a soft salmon, creating a warm, womblike feeling. Dinner was gnocchi, Roman Style (an intense tomato sauce), veal medallions, and a salad of bitter greens.
Paris may be the most beautiful city in Europe, with Prague a close second, yet their glories are most fully appreciated in the daytime. But Rome at night! No city can hope to compete with its warmth and unearthly loveliness. The buildings, painted in shades of terracotta, pink, gold, cream and ochre, are bathed in soft yellow streetlight, intensifying and softening these colors. The basalt cobblestones, worn to a satin finish by the feet of millions, glow like jewels. Everything is touched with magic, and the thousands of years of history seem to hang like bats in the shadows. In these winding streets of the historical center, all is hushed, the noisy traffic of the nearby Via del Corso forgotten.
I made one last stop: to buy a pear gelato, tasting exactly like the flesh of the ripe fruit. (How do they manage to do this!?) Walking back to my hotel, I was stopped by a handsome young Italian in a car, looking for directions to Trastevere. I was amused to be giving directions to a native, and the fact that I was actually helpful pleased me all the way back to the hotel. I dropped into bed at ten, having been awake for 36 hours.

The next day was September 11. A block from my hotel is the Vittorio Emmanuele II Park, a wide, lovely space with a subway stop below. I spotted one of the most beautiful trees I’ve ever seen, a gnarled trunk topped with cascades of round green leaves hanging down like trumpet vine. Holding down the corner of the park is a huge ruin, the Porta Magica, the remnant of a former villa built by the Massimo family, part of its structure built onto an earlier ruin.
I bought my train tickets to Lecce, then walked down the Via del Corso to the Galleria Alberto Sordi, named for the beloved film star. (Imagine an American mall named for a star, say, the Humphrey Bogart Center.) Here I found a great, great bookstore, Feltrinelli, where I bought an Italian musical based on “Roman Holiday” and had lunch in the caffé. This turned out to be a shopping day, and I hit at least a dozen profumerie (scent shops) before I found a bottle of my favorite cologne, Acqua di Selva, which I’ve used since 1963. (The clerk was a dark, slight man with depthless black eyes and a warm smile, deeply attractive.) Later in the day I bought a small bronze goat, which means that I now have the beginnings of a collection, as I bought another in Dublin two years ago.
Once more in Piazza Navona, I decided to give the art a closer look. Perhaps my first impression had been at fault. The oil paintings were the worst, the watercolors only slightly better. The pernicious influence of Thomas Kinkaid seems to be starting to infect the Italians as well. The feeling I got while strolling among the stands was how much better I am than most of these, which didn’t really please me. I really wanted them to be better. One painter, a sloppy old woman from the pastry tube school of art, displayed work so bad that my heart was wrung with pity. The many portrait artists were better, though their work was generally so prettified and flattering as to be worthless. The caricaturists were the most skillful of all, though some were so mordant that in sitting for one, one’s self-esteem might well be permanently damaged.
To refresh my eye, I walked down along the antique shops and artisans of Via dei Coronari, then turned to the river. Walking along the Lungotevere under the towering plane trees I watched the traffic hurtle madly by, suddenly grateful to be on foot. I have never seen traffic madder, more frenetic; a careless jaywalker would be immediately slaughtered. I was getting a bit tired, so settled on a step of the Ponte Sant’Angelo to watch the students and young lovers it seems to attract. Eventually I got up and crossed the bridge, studying the ten angels along its length. These are the products of some of Bernini’s more gifted students, and perfectly embody the baroque style. They swirl with such a sense of frozen movement, of life itself, they might almost be intended as spirits of the dance.
Ahead was Castel Sant’Angelo, originally Hadrian’s tomb, one place in Rome I’d never managed to explore. It was too late to visit the museum inside, but a banner advertising a current show made me determined to return the next day. This was “The Triumph of Idiocy.” It was not a tribute to George W. Bush, but to the “prejudices, follies, and banality of the Europeans.” Three satirical artists of different periods were featured: Daumier, Georg Grosz, and Goya.

AN EVENING’S PLEASURE
My evening’s goal was Teatro Marcello, a large Roman ruin, part of which was now adapted into a building of apartments for the elderly, part still being excavated by archaeologists. I was to attend an opera concert that night. I took the long, but easier way, along the Tiber. The low sun filtering through the leaves of the plane trees gave the impression of walking along a curtain of nature’s lace, a swirl of yellow, green and fawn. Edward Thomas once wrote that “the past is the only dead thing that smells sweet” but the scent of the dead leaves was a rich, autumnal perfume. Along the water were tour boats and other pleasure craft, already draped in their winter coats, awaiting the crowds of spring.
I crossed the busy Lungotevere as the architecture got more interesting. An unidentified moorish palace, a gallery of shops dating back a couple of centuries, then at last the Museo Ebraico, glowing like burnished gold in the sun, just before it sank below the Janiculum hill.
Teatro Marcello was not easy to find from this direction. Walking through a series of alleyways I saw far below a pit with a stage and chairs arranged in rows. A voluptuous redhead was fiddling with a microphone, so I shouted down, “Dov’e l’entrata?” “Over there,” she replied in English, pointing. I trotted through a few more alleyways and finally found the ticket stand, then began to look for a place to eat. This was a little snack bar in the shadow of the Vittorio Emmanuele monument.
Before the concert I bought a vanilla gelato and settled down on a block of travertine marble to savor it in the soft Roman evening. Pure pleasure, but better was to come. The concert was by two New Zealand (!) sopranos, the bulk of the music by Puccini. I found a terrific seat in the center. The first out was Emma Fraser, still a student, but with a confident stage presence. She seemed very promising, despite somewhat uneasy top notes. The second singer was the girl I’d seen at the microphone, Anna Leese. The program quoted the London Times, describing her as “a star in the making.” I could immediately tell why. Her voice was richer, darker, of dramatic soprano quality. She also turned out to be a first-rate actress, which is rarer. Her first aria was from La Boheme. Her strapless gown and jewels seemed to drop away to reveal the rags of the young, doomed Mimi, as she acted the role as well as singing it perfectly. The two singers alternated for the rest of the program, which was so well-received that we got an encore, a duet from La Nozze di Figaro. This was also very coyly, cleverly acted.
Returning to the hotel, I took what I hoped would be a shortcut through the momuments. I knew it would be safe when I saw that Michelangelo’s magnificent Campidoglio was not deserted; Marcus Aurelius glowered down from his horse, reluctant to release his hold on the ancient city he once ruled. I found a passage to the Via dei Fori Imperiale. Descending the hill, I was brought almost to tears by the beauty of the sight. No one who hasn’t seen Rome at night can comprehend how gorgeous, how mysterious, it is. Rome’s fabled past is right there, so present one can almost hear the clink of armor, the murmur of Latin voices from the era of empire. The monuments -- Trajan’s column, Caesar’s forum, the temple of Antoninus and Faustina -- are dimly, artfully illuminated, with just enough left in shadow to fire the imagination. I lingered as long as I could, and very, very slowly walked up the Esquiline hill to my hotel.
An art gallery on Via Cavour was still open so I stopped. The show was a series of monumental photos of nude warriors, treated in a sort of pointillist, half polarized style. The handsome owner was very friendly, and I got the (perhaps wishful?) impression he might have even been more so if a long call hadn’t come in on his cell phone. They were on the point of closing, so I moved on.
This day I’d tried out a new theory of mine. By walking slowly, not rushing, and taking everything at a leisurely pace, one might keep from getting tired. It doesn’t work.

A PALIMPSEST OF TIME
Going into the morning subway to Castel Sant’Angelo a charming young Briton (who reminded me of my nephew Toby) gave me information on buying my ticket and changing lines. When I emerged from the Lepanto stop, it was still early so I walked along Via Cola di Rienzo, stopping for a caffé and browsing through a bookstore. (I love Italian book cover design, quite different from our own.) It was cool and cloudless, like every other day I spent in Rome, with a sky of dazzling sapphire blue.
Castel Sant’Angelo is a perfect metaphor for Rome, a palimpsest through which one can the great eras of the city and city-state, one age clearly merging into another. The shell is a medieval fort, built around the original Hadrian’s tomb. I got my ticket and walked around the circular path to the bookstore in back. The walls of the tomb are a mad, irrational jumble of boulders, smaller rough stones, and bits of marble embedded in concrete. This was originally faced with marble, and decorated with columns. Inside the building itself, one descends a flight of stairs, then up a long, winding tunnel leading to the upper floors. Funerary urns are set along at regular intervals, none of them, presumably, containing the ashes of Hadrian. At the top one crosses a dry moat, and emerges into a sunny courtyard, presided over by a huge stone angel. Just off this is the art gallery, the Sala di Apollo, as fascinating as any exhibit it might show. Gorgeous frescoes cover the walls and vaulted ceiling, a Renaissance artist’s update of the decorative Roman style one finds in the ruins of Pompeii. Arabesques and floral forms merge into animal forms, angels and gryphons and lions and hares mate and converge. You might think this style of decoration the true forerunner of surrealism. I spent far more time looking at these frescoes than at the exhibit.
But this was a feast, too. I began with the prints by Daumier, of bathers at the beach. Here the satire was gentle, poking fun at the varieties of the human body. I moved on to the prints and drawings of Georg Grosz, the expressionist whose bitter vision of Weimar Germany became even more scathing in the Nazi era, requiring his escape to America. Life in George Bush’s America makes one appreciate even more Grosz’s loathing of corruption. His social conscience was eternally on fire, and even his American work is mordant and unsparing.
Blackest of all were Goya’s prints showing the horrors of the Napoleonic wars, expressing the despair at the human condition at its most unsparing, its most unforgiving. His vision of humankind is almost terrifying. Here, too was a prefiguring of surrealism, anticipating the actual movement by a century.
Needing a sweet vision to cleanse my mental palate, I ascended to the parapets, possibly the best views of Rome. Below me, in dazzling sunlight, lay St. Peters basilica, and the dramatic bend in the Tiber where one enters Vatican City. There was a caffé here, so I got a bottled water and settled on a marble bench to enjoy the view. How could I have been so lucky with the weather? And why, on four previous visits to Rome, had I never entered this marvelous edifice?
The next level up contained the Farnese apartments, the luxurious quarters of Pope Paul III. What uncommon splendor he lived in, while lesser catholics lived in squalor and heartbreaking poverty. One salon was covered from floor to dome with grand Renaissance frescoes, presided over at one end by Hadrian, the other by the Archangel Michael, a most unlikely pairing.
In another salon was an exhibit celebrating the life of Guiseppe Giacosa, playwright and the librettist of three of Puccini’s operas, La Boheme, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. Two more salons displayed original costumes, photos, letters, and sketches for sets and costumes.
And at last the rooftop, swimming in sunshine, surmounted by another colossal Archangel Michael, this time in bronze, and far more ferocious than his fresco counterpart.

ST. PETER’S
Off to the side of Piazza San Pietro I bought a fantastically delicious panino of cheese, eggplant and chicken cutlet on a sesame bun. Simple fare, but delectable paired with a bottle of much-needed water. I sat on a low balustrade surrounded by plump Italian matrons, a swarm of pigeons pooling around my feet, crooning as if to coax a few crumbs from me. It was bliss merely to sit. I’m a marathon walker, but even a Sherman tank needs to stop for gas once in a while. Not far away stood a large red-faced man with a daunting walrus mustache, great gobs of mayonnaise dripping from it. I had extra napkins and he chortled and grinned like Teddy Roosevelt when I gave him some.
There was a huge throng waiting to get into the basilica, because of security, of course, the bane of our troubled times. It moved surprisingly quickly. Ah, the huge interior: from the sublime (the undeniably great art) to the ridiculous (a line of gape-mouthed pilgrims queued up to rub the toes of a bronze Jesus, presumably for luck). The greatest masterpiece of all, Michelangelo’s Pietá, was so far away, and surrounded by glass, that it might as well have been in North Dakota -- but safe from madmen with hammers, I suppose.
Outside again, I headed for the Gianicolo, the vast park overlooking the city on the west side of the Tiber. Thinking I might find an entrance to it on its west side, I walked up Via Fornace, but could find no entrance. I returned to the bottom of the hill again, and tried the Viale di Mura Aurelie, but again with no luck. Always to my left as I toiled up the hill was the park, guarded by a high wall. It took a good 45 minutes to walk to the southern end before I found an entrance. This led to Piazza Garibaldi, his huge equestrian statue presiding over the city, even higher than the top of Castel Sant’Angelo. Again, magnificent views of a breathtaking city, making me wonder if Paris is really that much more beautiful by day. Young lovers were draped over the walls, children played among the busts lining the street, depicting heroes of the Risorgimento. From the high walls I could even see the Apennine mountains, blue-grey in the distance. This was a revelation, seeing Rome, for the first time, not just as my beloved city, but as a jewel in a larger setting.
Outside the Park was the Paolo fountain, commemorating Pope Paul V. From a gorgeous baroque edifice, water poured into a cool blue semicircle from the mouths of dragons. It’s far larger than the Trevi fountain, but more classically restrained in style.

BY TRAIN ACROSS ITALY
I slept for an unprecedented ten hours, and was wakened by a lovely young Russian woman with my breakfast. My train didn’t leave till noon, so I checked out and strolled the neighborhood, stopping to browse the bookstalls in Piazza Repubblica. Besides the vast banks of art books there were more porn DVDs than anything else. O tempora, o mores. At the Stazione Termini bookstore, a grand emporium, I bought a P.D. James mystery and a Herald Tribune. I returned to the hotel to read the latter (and pick up my bag), and the young Russian gave me a glass of juice. I was glad I’d left her a sizable tip on the dresser.
On the train I settled into my seat opposite a tall, friendly student with huge hazel eyes, and opened my book. We rolled out of town, through San Marcellino and on through wild, lovely countryside, the Tyrrhenian sea clearly visible for long stretches. At the hilly town of Caserta we stopped for over an hour -- there was a fire on the tracks up ahead. Finally lurching into action, we passed Benevento (it’s a good wind that blows nobody ill) and on through Bovina. Immediately after this we were out of the mountains and onto a long, flat plane for many miles thereafter. Cervaro, Foggia, Barletta, Bari, Ostuni, Brindisi, and finally, Lecce.
Francesca was waiting for me on the platform, a bright figure in pink, her welcoming smile a great jolt of energy to me. She told me that Toby was due to fly in on Sunday. We drove immediately to her parents’ house, where I’d enjoyed myself so thoroughly in February. I’d seen Giacomo and Angela only a couple of weeks before, but it was still a joyous reunion.
A hot meal prepared by Angela was waiting. She’s a very talented cook, able to whip up a feast with a minimum of fuss. Pasta (orrechietti, a favorite of the region) and shrimp with mixed vegetables, a local fish, fileted and baked to a sublime tenderness, a cold octopus salad and of course the local vino rosso.
After the meal, we took a passegiata, the evening stroll beloved of all Italians. Brenda, Giacomo and Angela’s scruffy little dog, pattered along merrily at our feet, delighted to explore the city too. Although it was now between eleven and midnight on a Thursday, the streets were thronged with people. Lecce is a university town, so most of these were students. We met Irene, Franci’s best friend, and her brother Stefano and after a brief chat, headed home and to bed.

MASSAFRA
In the morning Angela and Giacomo and I headed toward the coast to Massafra, a few miles northwest of Taranto. This was where Giacomo used to work, so we stopped at an old haunt of his for a fine lunch, which featured zuppa di ceci, a bold and satisfying chickpea soup, a wrap with prosciutto, mozzarella and tomato, and finishing with a fruit macedonia. This could be described as a fruit cocktail, but was as radically different from the American canned variety as one could hope, fresh local fruit tossed together into a celestial treat. In town, Giacomo had business with his cousin, a lawyer, so Angela and I set out alone.
Massafra’s most noteworthy feature is a deep ravine that bisects the town. Caves are carved into the sides; these were used in ages past as homes and hideaways, some even made into chapels. This ravine, which widens downward toward the sea, is crossed by an iron bridge, and less fortunately, is disfigured by new houses and apartment buildings. These are built right to the edge, and have damaged the caves to some extent. We met Giacomo’s brother Nunzio, and Nunzio’s brother-in-law Mino. Mino is a handsome man in his 70s who lived in America for a dozen years before returning to his hometown. His English is charming and expert, and he served as a translator for Teresa, a guide from the tourist office who joined us. With Angela as chauffeur, we set out for a highly entertaining tour of the town.
First stop was a crypt from the 13th century, a primitive chapel carved into the limestone from which the town rises. The remains of frescoes in the Byzantine style were amazingly well-preserved -- what was left of them. These beautifully stylized figures have managed to survive in spite of local indifference, neglect and outright vandalism. Some primitive people from an earlier age even dug out holes in a few places, in hopes that treasure was buried in the wall behind them. According to Mino, they will probably continue to deteriorate and will eventually be lost. He grew bitterly pessimistic on the subject of his fellow townsmen, whom he sees as selfish, lawless, and concerned only with doing better than their neighbors. His scorn extended to Italy itself, a country all too willing to let its treasures decay.
Further on, we descended into the canyon itself. Going down the rough limestone steps, I admired a pretty bush, one of hundreds of different flowering plants and trees in the ravine, bursting with roundish leaves and frilly lavender flowers. On these bushes grow capers. I tasted a bud; unprocessed, it is bitter and characterless. But the flowers had a faint suggestion of the familiar caper scent. We were going down to visit another chapel, carved into one of the caves. In the forecourt to the chapel was a fig tree bursting with ripe fruit. We pulled off several and ate them. These were a treat, soft and easily pulled apart, a treasury of seeds like tiny garnets within the tender, sugary flesh.
This chapel was a bit more ornate than the previous one, and someone had half-heartedly attempted to preserve a couple of the panels, but the attempt hurt more than helped.
At the bottom of another deep ravine a short drive away is a baroque church, the Chiesa di Madonna della Scala, carved out of the rock. One walks down over two hundred steps to reach it. The church isn’t particularly noteworthy, but in a crypt off to the side are even more elaborate frescoes than the ones we had seen. These are far better preserved.
Back in town, we parted from Nunzio, Mino and Teresa, and I was shown the local castle (every town in Salento appears to have one), with a small but good museum featuring the local wine and olive oil industry. We drove to pick up Giacomo at his cousin’s office, but they were not finished. Angela went out to the balcony for a cigarette, but the mosquitoes (and smoke) drove me inside. Other clients were waiting, and proved to be friendly and curious about me (they don’t receive many American visitors in this corner of Italy). One middle-aged lady had the fattest feet I have ever seen, like soft loaves of dough stuffed into tiny silver sandals, toes bursting out at the ends like piglets escaping under a fence. Her husband had the severe, sunburned beauty of the very old in this part of the world.
Giacomo’s business done, we repaired to a little bar around the corner, stopping to chat with an acquaintance of theirs, a young man named Michele. On the sexiness meter, he went right off the chart. After a beer and a snack, we were on our way to Taranto.
Taranto is the largest town in the region, a navy town. A wide, deep canal leads to a piscina where ships are berthed. Giacomo looked for a parking space while Angela and I strolled along the seawall. The evening air was cool and smelled of the sea. Lovers walked arm in arm; young sailors skylarked in small groups, laughing. After a gelato and a sit-down at a central piazza, we headed home. But there was one more surprise in a day full of them.
In Maduria we stopped at what I thought at first was a rock concert in the town square. Wrong. It featured regional music, with a few dancers, and was held in celebration of socialist unity. The dancers kept changing, but three girls never left the floor. All were lovely, but one was gorgeous, a thin wisp of dark girl with wild, gypsy hair and tireless feet. She twirled about to the primitive rhythm like the spirit of dance itself. Angela and Giacomo danced together, alive with the spirit of the music, unwilling for the evening to come to an end. The music sounded to my untrained ear like endless variations on the tarantella, played by a band consisting of guitars, tamborines, an accordion, recorder, and two instruments I couldn’t identify. We got cups of the local wine, rough and sweetish, and eventually drove home to a much-deserved rest.

CASARANO
In the morning, Angela, Giacomo, Francesca and I set out for Casarano, around thirty miles to the south of Lecce. First stop was an ancient church built in the middle of the fifth century, the Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Croce. Outside, it’s a construction of simple boxes. Inside, however, are jewels of paleo-Christian art, well-preserved frescoes on walls and ceilings. In the apse, the elaborate geometrical mosaics are unusual for their period, showing an attempt to depict three dimensions.
Outside, we met Antonella (a cousin, I think), a woman with olive skin and pale blue eyes dramatically ringed with dark lashes. At the tourist office I was given booklets and maps, and then we stopped at a caffé for iced coffee and a snack. Dominating a main street of the town is an ancient palazzo decorated by a line of carved stone brackets, decorated with depictions of the faces of the men the builder had slain.
We went to visit Antonella’s grandmother, an ancient beauty of 95, quite frail but intensely alive to everything going on. Her little courtyard garden off the kitchen was a pocket Eden, with pepper plants and flowers growing in rich profusion. I was encouraged to try one of the peppers; my mouth returned to normal some time later. Afterward, we met Antonella’s parents and brother, with his young son Eduardo, a four-year-old bursting with energy and charm. He desperately wanted to join us as we drove out of town.
We headed down the coast to the town of Torre San Gregorio, and ate at Ristorante da MiMi. I’m fairly certain that I’ve never eaten in a more beautiful spot. The outside terrace, covered with a canopy of cane, faces the Ionian sea. Tall trees on the terrace grow through the canopy. Bathers a short distance away frolic in water so blue as to defy belief, and the sky was utterly without clouds.
For a first course we had spaghetti with clams and mussels, swimming in a sauce of butter with a hint of cayenne. Next came a local fish, roasted with slices of lime, big enough to serve us all, the tender flesh falling off the bone. Everything was served with a local white wine. An unforgettable, golden afternoon.
After a while, we headed south, to Santa Maria Leuca, the southernmost point of the heel of Italy’s boot, then north along the coast toward Otranto. The sea here had become so blue as to aspire to purple. Here on the coast the vegetation becomes tropical, flowers pouring forth from every bush, palms (my favorite tree) in rich profusion. As the sun sank lower we reached Grotta Ciolo, a deep ravine leading down to the sea. Several swimmers were still here, far below, and the air was like wine. We continued up the coast to Castro, lorded over by another vast Aragonese castle. Salento is something of a crossroads of the Mediterranean, visited and sometimes conquered by the Spanish, Greeks, Phoenicians, and Turks, all leaving their cultural or architectural mark. Castles and fortifications, architectural details on later buildings, sometimes only the memory of a great tragedy remain. Otranto, for instance, was the site of a bloody massacre by the Turks, in which three hundred of the city’s population were beheaded. Their skulls are preserved as a monument in the cathedral.
Back home, I was presented with an incomparable gift: a five-liter can of the local olive oil, produced by one of Giacomo’s family connections in Casarano. Later I stopped by to see Nico and Mario, the friends next door whom I grew so fond of when I visited in February. A happy reunion.
Mario is a steady, stable figure, reserved and deeply attractive. He’s always reminded me of Richard Tucker the opera singer, but better looking. Nico is dark, olive-skinned and voluble, with jet black eyes and eyebrows. He speaks a fair amount of English, and speaks it better than he thinks. He’s also a tireless flirt, a great nipple-tweaker and earlobe tugger, which not everyone would find agreeable. I do. Mario has written a number of books and operates an antiquarian bookstore. Nico cooks (superbly) and cleans, and this seems to be a most effective partnership. It is, to all practical purposes, a happy marriage.

TOBY AT LAST
On the way to Bari to pick up Toby at the airport, we stopped at Monopoli, a beautiful town where I experienced a new taste: the fruit of the prickly pear. It was sweet and tender, with a bright orange color, but studded through with small, hard seeds. The sensation was something like eating an overripe persimmon peppered with birdshot. Afterward we strolled down along the seawall. Below, a man sat on a rock, carefully peeling and eating freshly caught sea urchins. Then after seeing a small, perfect castle, once the home of King Carlo V, we returned to the car and headed north.
Next stop was a gorgeous seaside town called Polignano a Mare, so popular a spot (and no wonder!) that we had trouble finding a place to park. Finally, on a little spit of land overlooking the beach we stopped for lunch. Angela had packed sandwiches and beer. The sky was cloudless as usual, and a soft breeze blew through our hair and I could gladly have stayed here for the rest of the day. We were joined by a couple, a very stylish blonde and her companion. Surprisingly, he turned out not to be a male model, as one might suppose from his looks, but a lawyer from Lecce.
There was a caffé a short walk away, so we went there for a sit-down, looking down on water that varied from bright turquoise to malachite green, astonishingly limpid and inviting.
In Bari, Toby’s plane turned out to be late (Alitalia, after all) so we dropped Giacomo and Angela off at IKEA, and Francesca showed me the city. This turned out to be the first Italian city I’ve seen totally without charm. It’s dirty, crime-ridden, and if it has attractions, I didn’t see them. Franci spent some time there as a student and hated every minute.
In all fairness, Bari’s airport isn’t bad. Eventually Toby’s plane came in, and we were all glad to see him, no one more than Francesca, of course. We drove home in great spirits, Toby had a shower, and we joined Mario and Nico for dinner, with flowing wine and a non-stop chatter in Italian -- and a little English.

GALATINA
In the morning, I went with Nico and Mario to Galatina, a small town some 20 miles away. Mario was seeing his publisher, Congedo Editore, and introduced me to his editor, Francesco. Mario thought he might be interested in my artwork, so I left my business card. As Nico and I departed to see the town, Francesco gave me one of his products, a beautiful color guide to Lecce.
The church of Santa Caterina dell’Alessandria was the finest, most fascinating church of all that I visited on this trip. Splendid frescoes from the 13th century -- in mint condition -- cover every wall and the ceiling, their style an agreeable bridge between the medieval and the Renaissance. They all seemed to be from the hand of the same artist (or his studio). If so I never learned his name.
Before returning to Lecce, we stopped at a vineyard, where Mario and Nico bought several jugs of the local wine, red and white. This was a very streamlined operation, with siphons coming out of the floor, leading to the vats below. In addition, there were bottles of finer wine for sale. We were poured samples. This seems a good place to inject a note on the wines of the region. The most widely available red is called primitivo. This is a stronger wine, more robust in flavor than one generally finds, though not without subtle qualities. It has, I later discovered in the classic way, a higher alcoholic content. All over Salento one finds olive trees, seemingly in the billions, but there are many vineyards, too, all producing splendid wines.
Back in Lecce, Angela had prepared lunch featuring a roast chicken, peppery and savory. Attending this feast were Angela and Giacomo, Mario and Nico, Franci and Toby, and me, and also Angela’s mother, Carmela. Afterward I climbed to the roof and read for an hour.
In the evening, Nico and I strolled through Lecce, passing through the public gardens. This is a magnificent formal park set about with wooden benches, beautifully tended trees and flowers, with a lacy gazebo in the middle. I knew I would return, and in fact did several times. As in so many parks throughout Italy, stone busts of Italian statesmen and writers lined the walks.
On the way to Mario and Nico’s antiquarian bookshop, we stopped to visit with Rosie, in the next shop over. She’s an Australian, married to a courtly Italian gentleman whose name escaped me. We had a nice long chat, and she revealed that she has a hunger for books in English, which are harder to find in this corner of Italy. So for the rest of my visit, whenever I finished one of the books I’d gotten for the trip, I brought it to her.
I visited with Rosie for at least an hour. She’s a great film buff, and we share a particular affection for “Sideways.” When we got to the bookshop, Mario gave me an autographed copy of a book he’d written, Lecce Fantastica, a compendium of anecdotes, esoterica, sketches and odd tales about the city.

SAN CATALDO
The next morning I had the only disagreeable experience of the entire trip, a visit to a bank. I wanted merely to cash a traveler’s check, and was kept waiting for a full fifty minutes as the dull donkey of a teller, phone in one hand, calculator in the other, called on at least three co-workers to get it right. I hadn’t thought to bring a book with me, so I could only fume and wait. The only entertainment I could eke out was to doodle caricatures of the other patrons on a scrap of paper. I fumed for an hour afterward. Subsequent check-cashing was done at another bank and never took longer than fifteen minutes.
I was swiftly put in a good mood by Nico. We drove the ten miles to San Cataldo, a seaside resort I’d glancingly seen on my previous visit. The sun, predictably, was out in full force, and a gentle breeze stirred the palms. We drove a mile or so past the main beach, parked the car among several others, and walked north for about ten minutes. Immediately we spotted friends of Nico, a middle-aged couple. Luca looked, apart from being stark naked, like a college professor, with pale hornrimmed glasses and studious air. (I learned later he’s an actor.) His wife Pia has flaming red hair (on her head, at any rate) and was thoroughly charming. We chatted for a minute or so and proceeded up the beach.
We settled down near a pile of driftwood. As we were undressing, along came another friend of Nico. Salvatore is young and slim and friendly, with fine dark eyes. He’s a student at the local university. Nico and Salvatore chose only to sunbathe. Just lying in the sun has always bored me intensely, so I plunged into the Adriatic (senza vestiti, of course). The water was perfect, neither cold nor warm, but cool and with occasional warm currents swirling through from time to time. On New England beaches I rarely venture out farther than my waist, as my imagination conjures up all sorts of sea creatures all too willing to drag me into the jaws of death. I always imagine that great white sharks are lurking near. Here, however, I felt no such qualms, and swam out a full fifty yards. Alone in the sea, rocked by the gentle waves, I swam for most of an hour, then joined Nico and Salvatore onshore.
I would never describe myself as a beach person, but I guess I am now. We stayed for a full five hours, and I could gratefully have stayed longer. As I was armed with an enormous tube of 45-protection sunblock -- and Nico to slather it on me -- I never came close to being burned. Having entertaining company fed my pleasure, of course, and it was liberating in the extreme to talk frankly about anything and everything. Sex, naturally, was the most common topic. My only problem was that a combination of sweat and sunblock kept my eyes stinging. Toward the end, Nico left us alone to go for a run. The low sun seemed hotter than at midday, so Salvatore and I found shade under an outcropping of straggly cedar, reeds, and beach debris.
When Nico returned, it was time to go. Walking slowly back to the car, we were joined by Luca and Pia, and I’m sorry that it was the last time I saw them. Like everyone I met in Italy (except for that bloody bank teller) I felt that warmth that could easily turn into friendship.

SON ET LUMIERE
That evening, Angela and I walked to the vast courtyard alongside the Church of Santa Croce for a light and sound show. Odd doesn’t begin to describe the experience. There was a constant musical undertow, a guitar and keyboard background. Only two performers were featured, a bald male singer who projected a dazzling sense self-importance, and an actress of hypnotic power. The singer sung in some unknown tongue, writhing and posturing fatuously, all but blowing kisses to himself. Neither Angela nor I could make sense of the language, which I think may have been Arabic. The music was unspeakably tedious, but luckily was interspersed with narration by the actress. I could understand many words but could not string them together to make any kind of sense. This woman was electrifying. She could have recited Good Night, Moon, the Gettysburg Address, or the lyrics to “Mairzy Doats ” in pig Latin and she would have held the audience in complete thrall. At the end, Angela told me that it had been a mythological tale, but that she was still unsure about what the music contributed. We stopped for some bottled water and walked home.
I have now known Angela for eight months, and we’ve only spent about three weeks together, but feel like I’ve known her always. There is something about her that would warm a stone statue. She and Giacomo, despite our difficulties in communicating, have clearly forged a firm bond.

DOLCE FAR NIENTE
In the morning, after some shopping in the historical center, I made my way to the newer part of Lecce, where there are many blocks of smart shops. I had lunch at a little tavola calda, ordering some mixed vegetables, a kind of meatloaf, and a bottle of beer. Partly through the meal I got the sinking feeling that the meat might have been horse, which is sometimes served in this part of the country. It did have a certain Alpo-like texture. The waitress assured me that it was not, but by now my appetite had flown so I left the remainder. By now the shops were closed (at 1 p.m.), so I strolled to the public gardens, an oasis of order and calm. At home I read my novel, had coffee with Giacomo, and in the evening was picked up by Toby and Francesca to go shopping at Ibercoop. This is a large, modern shopping center at the edge of town. We dropped Toby off for Aikido, then returned to have dinner with Giacomo, Angela, Nico and Mario. I had packed my bags earlier, and would spend the rest of my stay with Toby and Francesca. It was a lovely end to the day, with Toby eating a late dinner, and pleasant conversation. It was like being with my own kids.
The next day was spent much like this one, except for an explosion of music at the end...

CUTROFIANO
Angela and Giacomo and I drove for about 45 minutes to a small town farther south, Cutrofiano. There was a huge American-style pizzeria there, Jack ‘n Jill, with American beer advertisements all over the walls. One of them was for Sam Adams, brewed a few short blocks from my home in Boston, and I felt a twinge of homesickness. It didn’t last. The main attraction, however, was not the food. Seven musicians performed music of the Provincia da Lecce, and a livelier performance I have never enjoyed. The place was stuffed to the rafters with people, mostly university students, all utterly mesmerized by the music. Most people have a general idea of what a tarantella sounds like, and much of the music was in this driving, hypnotic style, or at least a variation of it. The musicians played non-stop for over an hour, and what little space remained on the floor was taken up by dancers. After a short break they continued. I felt like I was getting right into the bloodstream of Italy. Most American visitors see the great cities and the great art, and never get this far into the life of this surprising country. But here I was.

ANOTHER BEACH
Late in the morning, Francesca and walked to the Piazza del Duomo to meet her friend Nadia, a student at the university. She’s Tunisian, and was looking for an apartment in town. She’s a very pretty girl who dresses in western style, but she was unable to join us for coffee as she’s observing Ramadan.
Afterward I was dropped off at Nico and Mario’s. Their friend Angelo was there, making a cactus garden with different colored levels of sand. Nico had prepared lunch, tortellini in a sauce of butter and sage, simple but profoundly flavorful.
Nico, Angelo and I drove down the coast to Torre Inserraglio, a few miles north of Gallipoli, on the Ionian Sea (in the arch of the boot). This is, in summer, a gay beach, with a convenient pine forest nearby for dallying. Angelo went for a walk while Nico and I picked our way delicately over the rocks to the seaside. This is a beach without sand, only the deeply pitted karstic rock so prevalent in Puglia. We had to cross a field of these rocks, leaping agilely from stone to stone. It was like making a journey across a lunar landscape. There was no one about except a friendly older man, Francesco, who settled down near us. Eventually he donned flippers and goggles, and with a string bag, plunged into the water. In a few minutes he burst to the surface, shouting triumphantly and holding aloft an octopus he’d caught. For food, of course. In no time he had caught two more.
Francesco had declared the water to be bitingly cold, so I remained on my towel, soaking up rays. Nico, however, decided to take the plunge. He stood it for about ten minutes, then with teeth chatterering, emerged for me to rub him down. His skin was so cold I was grateful I hadn’t joined him.
Back on the road, Nico played American popular music on the CD player. He’s a huge fan, with a distinct preference for Sinatra. We all sang along, and although my memory for lyrics is spotty, “Lollipop” and Doris Day’s “Que Sera, Sera” came flooding back. We stopped for a beer and I was able to wash the salt off my hands at a fountain. Heading back in the dusk, we suddenly had a blowout. Nico and Angelo fixed it in about 12 minutes (it would have taken me even less time, as I would have called AAA) and we headed home.
At Giacomo and Angela’s I waited for Toby and Francesca, and then we walked to Trattoria Nonna Tetti, a favorite restaurant of theirs that I’d fallen in love with on my last visit. There was a wait, so we walked to “Road 66” (sic), a bar with an American roadhouse ambience. Toby and I had a beer and we returned to Nonna Tetti. It is becoming my custom to order the fantasia, the daily special, and this did not disappoint, being pasta with fresh seafood. Heavenly.

THE COASTAL ROUTE
I had a leisurely breakfast with Franci, and then was picked up by Angela and her mother Carmela for a drive down the coast. First stop was a peasant farmer’s market in San Cataldo. (It’s worth remarking here that in Italy ‘peasant’ is not a pejorative term as it is in America.) The fruit and vegetables on display were unbelievable: huge, ripe peaches the size of softballs, delicate little mandarin oranges, green and black olives in vats, and vegetables of every description. I bought a bag of mandarinos and Angela loaded up with tomatoes and peaches and a couple of loaves of bread.
We took the lovely coastal route southward, with Castro our ultimate goal, not for any particular reason, just as a point of reference. In fact, we never reached it. Paradise number one was the town of Melendugno, where I wisely bought a disposable camera. High over the sea stands the crumbling Torre del’Orso (bear tower, though there are no bears in Italy). Below them were bathers frolicking in the surf, in water of astonishing limpidity.
Lunch was an incredible pastry, a rustico, light and flaky and filled with molten mozzarella, bechamel sauce and tomato, the tomato sauce innocent of acidity. It couldn’t get better than this, I thought. I was wrong. The gelato afterward was a rich, fudgy chocolate laced with rum, the most intense I’ve ever eaten. I can now say that I have been to the mountaintop; I’ll never have gelato better than this. I tried hard not to faint from ecstasy, for the ladies could never have carried me back to the car by themselves.
Farther down the coast, but still in Melendugno, was Torre San Andrea. This smaller cove is dominated by another tower, this one honeycombed with tunnels, with bathers draped across the stones soaking up the sun. Every now and then someone would dive into the crystalline waters below. But for my clothing I would gladly have done the same.
Santa Casarea Terme is an ancient spa town. The baths are housed in a Moorish style castle, the Palazzo Sticchi. This proud queen of the sea is painted in pale pastels, in stark contrast to the intense colors of the sea below: deep navy blue to azure to turquoise. The sun sank lower, so we hurried on to paradise number two, Grotta Zinzusula.
This deep, cavernous grotto is a great gaping hole in the side of the land. We entered at sea level and climbed upward into the dark. Flocks of pigeons chortled softly on the rocks near the entrance, their cooing magnified by the echo of the cavern. A narrow path leads into the cavern, Dantesque and dimly lit. Although the path eventually came to an end, the cavern continues far below sea level. A guide was lecturing a group about the fauna of the cave. The sole sea dwellers here are blind albino shrimp whose diet consists solely of the guano dropped by the bats. M-m-m-m, yummy.
As it was late in the day, we decided to miss Castro, and turned back north, inland. Angela noticed a sign for La Cutura, a huge botanical garden, and turned in. This, paradise number three, was the highlight of a day filled with unforgettable sights.
Admission included a tour guide, and we walked through with a group of about twenty people. In the gardens I saw the tree that had so captivated me in Rome, and the guide identified it as a Japanese pagoda tree, sophora japonica. We were led from one type of garden to another. One section even had some wildlife: ducks, swan, geese, and somewhat incongruously, two fearless blue-eyed emus. They stalked along their pen beside us, as if curious as to what species we might be.
As darkness fell, the group diminished to about ten, and we were shown the cactus garden, with huge ghostly forms, some as tall as trees. An annex, a large greenhouse-type structure was arranged into several large rooms, each showing the cacti of a different country. Mexico and South Africa were represented, as was the American southwest. In the dim, bluish light the cacti seemed to assume shapes and character even more monstrous -- though of an unearthly beauty. Our dwindling party, now about six, walked back toward the entrance through dramatically lit trees as the soft night fell gently over our shoulders -- magical, ghostly, and profoundly peaceful. My inner child was simultaneously excited and soothed.
Back home, Angela, Toby and Franci and I had a magnificent meal together. I’m going to come home hopelessly spoiled.

AN ART TOUR
In the morning I took what I expected to be a short stroll through the town. I stopped at the first caffe I’d visited on my first trip to Lecce, and the same dazzling, black-eyed counterman was still there. There is no art museum in Lecce, but the churches are always reliable as displays of art. In the first there was only one really good painting, of a saint being slaughtered by two Saracens, a placid and wholly unrealistic look of pious contentment on his face. Most of the other art I saw was typical Roman catholic dreck, dark, muddy and executed by men of far greater piety than talent. Worst of all is the sculpture, various saints with rickety haloes studded with electric fairy lights, attended by vacuous putti (cherubs) with the wide-eyed stare of Barbie dolls -- if more fully figured. I had to reflect: Christianity, in particular the Catholic church, has given the world a treasury of great art, some of it sublime. But 95% of it, painting and sculpture at least, is overblown, maudlin garbage.
Touring the shops, I found one gallery devoted to the work of one artist, Sandro Greco. He has some small reputation, but to me he seemed merely a meretricious hack. Mere scribbles of paint on a panel were framed and displayed as if created by Monet. I didn’t see one piece that had a particle of value. The old lady in charge of the gallery was one of the faithful, however, and continued to hector me about the artist’s virtues. I tried to edge politely out of the shop. Finally I glanced at my watch, and with a look of mock horror, pretended I was missing an important appointment. I hurried out the door with relief.
Back at the apartment, Toby had returned home from work for the midday meal, but without Francesca. With confidence and unabashed brio he began to prepare lunch for me. I’d never seen my nephew cook before, and he set about it with an expertise that he must have absorbed from Holly’s DNA. Into a pot went a kind of pasta that I’d had before, a sort of thick noodle resembling dreadlocks. He tossed some cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced carrots and onions into a skillet of hot olive oil, and had soon created a lovely, bubbling sauce. “Michael, there should be some cheese in the refrigerator,” he said, and after he’d ladled the sauce over the pasta, I took the block in hand and started grating away while Toby put the pots into the sink.
“Toby, this cheese sure is grating oddly. It’s coming out in little pills, not flakes.”
He turned and his eyes widened. “Uh, Michael, that’s not cheese.” It turns out I was grating a bar of massage soap which has to be refrigerated to keep from liquifying -- which it was now doing into the pasta.
“Well, lunch is on me,” I sheepishly said. We walked a couple of blocks away to Il Ghiottone and lunched on risotto. I felt terrible for Toby. He’d created what surely must have been a culinary masterpiece, but then I guess I’ll never know.
That night the three of us walked through the city to the small, chic Ristorante dei Due Corti. They serve up specialties of the region prepared with flair, rich, spicy, and complex. This is truly haute cuisine at its best. The antipasti of vegetables, meats and cheeses were indescribable, thrillingly seasoned with capers, oil, and even a trace of mint. My main course was stuffed calamari, terrific but almost anticlimactic. Our leisurely passegiata home wended, not by accident, by a gelateria favored by Toby and Francesca.

PIZZA AND BEER, ITALIAN STYLE
The next night, we picked up Francesca’s best friend Irene (since childhood), and we drove to Gallipoli. This ancient town originated on a small knob of land sticking into the Ionian Sea, then expanded inland. Nobody in the car had a kind word to say about Gallipoli, but I liked it. A squat Castilian castle, bristling with cannon, guards the harbor. We parked and were joined by Irene’s boyfriend Vito. An architectural student in Rome, he’s short and dark and quite pleasant. There was a bit of rumbling about looking for an ATM, then we went into a restaurant recommended by Nico, D.O.C., the meaning of which I never found out. A menu board outside advertised “ostrich, Maryland style,” which I cannot envision by the wildest stretch of my imagination. Not even this exotic dish could bring in the customers, however; we were the only ones in the place. D.O.C. was expensive, with a bleak and overstyled decor in silver, red and black, and the waiter was anything but friendly. We left with little regret.
Vito called his mother, who recommended Vesuvio, on the way out of town. This was a much better choice. Even at 10 p.m., the place was full. Our handsome waiter was Albanian, and the restaurant hostess was noteworthy for her magnificent decolletage. Her breasts were straight out of science fiction: full bowls of gelatin jiggling so spectacularly that even I noticed them. We ordered two huge platters of antipasto, one seafood, the other a fabulous mound of grilled vegetables. Beer was the tipple of the evening, as we ordered the specialty of the house, pizza. Only one pizza was necessary. This prodigy among pizzas was the width of an ordinary one, but the length of an ironing board. It came at us in sections: margherita, melanzane, and sausage and chicory -- marvelous. Afterward I drew on the paper tablecloth, which has become something of a custom by now. We didn’t return to Lecce till 12:15.

INDIA, ITALIAN STYLE
The following evening, Giacomo and Angela and I went to a movie, Viaggio in India, which was more interesting than good: slow, tedious, but sometimes remarkably beautiful. I understood perhaps 2 percent of what was being said -- or going on. For instance, about 45 minutes into the film, the protagonist got on all fours and started pouring out his anguish to a bronze brahma bull, which made not a particle of sense. The final footage, which included shots of suttee on the banks of the Ganges, was at least visually arresting, and the corpses seemed to be real. Still, it was anything but a documentary, and pretentious as hell.
This was only my second time in an Italian cinema, which contrast interestingly to the ones in America. There is no brightly lit, hard-selling concession stand, only a few bags of chips on offer. Could this be still another reason Italians aren’t generally fat? Coming attractions are shown, but there are no flashy ads or admonishments or messages. Halfway through the film, the film stops abruptly for a five minute lights-up break.

ALBEROBELLO
I settle myself uneasily into my seat. To begin with, the seat belt doesn’t work. I grab hold of the strap over the door, and suddenly we’re off. The car hurtles through the streets of Lecce. We pass through a stop sign without so much as a pause, then another, and another. At last we’re on the open road and I heave a sigh of relief. Carmela and I are off to see the town of Alberobello. Carmela is Francesca’s grandmother, a stout woman of about seventy. Her eyesight’s bad, but somehow we stay on the road. And we had better, as we’re going over 80 m.p.h. Prayer suddenly seems like a logical idea.
Alberobello, a sizeable town, is noteworthy for being constructed largely of trulli. A trullo is a round peasant hut made of stones, tapering to a cone on top, usually surmounted by a smaller inverted cone, then a knob. The sides are generally whitewashed. This is a basic building unit, and a house may be constructed of several of these, from one, to six or more. The effect is something between a fairy tale castle and a gnome’s dwelling, and they must be seen to be believed. Trulli are native to this northern part of Salento and nowhere else.
We drove north toward Brindisi, and then hooked off toward the west. After about an hour we stopped to rest Carmela’s eyes. Every muscle in my body was tense: trying not to look terrified is damned energy-consuming. Soon we pressed on. We stopped at a filling-station cum caffé for coffee and a cornetto filled with Nutella, which brightened the day considerably.
The towns of Francia Martino and Locorotondo were lovely but we didn’t stop. Arriving in Alberobello, we had some difficulty parking as there was a religious festival in town, the feast of Saints Cosma and Damiano. In the 18th century cathedral, I admired the modern frescoes, primarily by two artists. These are beautifully stylized, an admirable compromise between the classic and the contemporary. Suddenly the church emptied.
Outside, the procession of the saints was beginning. The celebrants were lined up along the sides of the main street leading to the cathedral. Like salmon going upstream to spawn, Carmela and I pressed in the opposite direction, stopping occasionally to watch. Just like in the movies, two garishly colored statues of the saints were hoisted on the shoulders of the faithful and conveyed in great pomp toward the church, a brass band following. When we reached the bottom of the street the crowd started thinning out. Nearby was a parapet where I could see the town stretched out below, an endless fantasia of trulli, whitewashed and neat, under a startling blue sky.
We stalked about looking for a good place for lunch, Carmela rejecting each one in turn with a snort. Eventually we found a stand where I bought rolls, prosciutto and a rough native cheese. Carmela pulled me over to a caffé table and proceeded to make the sandwiches. Predictably, we were shooed off by the waiter, so we ate them standing under trees in the central square. I thought longingly of all the nice places we could have eaten, but what the hell, it was just food. And it was here.
On the way back to the car it was all uphill. Carmela puffed like a steam engine, so I gave her my arm and we toiled uphill together. For most of the day I had carried her capacious handbag -- which I suspect contained bricks -- so I was almost as exhausted as she when we got back to the car. She gave me a broad smile and once more we were off in a cloud of dust.
On the way back I appreciated the effort Carmela had gone through to show me this astonishing town. We stopped at least four times for her to rest -- once for a short nap. The first rest was in front of the gates of a lovely little villa outside Locorotondo, with extensive gardens in front. The chatelaine of the villa came out to see if anything was wrong, and Carmela assured her that she was just tired. The lady disappeared, and soon reappeared with coffee and two rolls stuffed with cheese and macerated tomatoes, a beautiful gesture of hospitality. The rest of the drive back was uneventful, a blessing considering the speed at which Carmela drives.
She let me off in front of Toby and Francesca’s -- alive. I resisted the urge to kiss the ground, remembering that the Leccese don’t always clean up after their dogs. As I came in, Toby was just leaving to give an English lesson. I flopped down on the sofa and fell into a short nap. It had been one hell of a day.
That night I treated all of my hosts to dinner at Trattoria Nonna Tetti, so unforgettable and joyous feast that I wish I could be sitting there still.

The next day, Angela came over with lunch, a heavenly fish dish with rice and peas and a tomato sauce. After she and Francesca left, I read Walt Whitman to Toby while he rested his eyes. Early in my visit, he had contracted a bad case of conjunctivitis, and it had gotten steadily worse. Today, the eye was no better so he stayed home from work.
That evening, my last, I went with Giacomo and Angela to a presentation across the street from their house. The program was in three parts, none of which seemed to have anything to do with the others, and all were a challenge to my Italian, a test I’m afraid I failed. The building is a former monastery, and the courtyard is one of the most ethereal, lovely spaces I’ve ever seen. It is surrounded by twenty-eight columns with a loggia behind. The columns in the creamy local stone were softly lit from below, with potted palms spaced about. The audience sits facing a high platform, and when we arrived the first part of the presentation was in progress.
We were given plastic cups and asked to crinkle them up, then attempt to tear them apart in strips, though to what purpose, I never learned. The second part was an interview with a very confident man that lasted for about an hour. The young woman interviewing him asked one question, and it was like flicking a switch; he began and simply ran on. When he came to a stop everyone leaned forward. It was like a merry-go-round grinding to a halt. Another question, and he was off again. Midway through, a pianist came on. I immediately brightened and sat up straight in anticipation of some music. The pianist sat and played -- three notes. There was more chatter, then four or five more notes, then more talk. This was maddening. Finally, he played a few bars of Mozart -- and stopped again. It was all quite frustrating, and made me realize anew how little Italian I know. The final talk was by a mathematics professor, sort of a “fun with math” talk.
Afterward I had pizza and beer with Giacomo and Angela at their favorite local spot, and then went home to the kids. Toby and Francesca are preparing a vast party for the 13th of October. I did some calligraphy for the envelopes, then went to pack my bag. Amazingly, I managed to cram everything into my bag. Had I added a couple of aspirin, it might have burst. It was almost a relief to acknowledge that I couldn’t possibly buy another thing.

ROME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN
In the morning Francesca went to the station to pick up Rachel and Gordon, Toby’s good friends from home. I had only two hours to enjoy their company and then it was time to leave. Toby was still in bed, so I said goodbye to him, with real regret. Franci drove me and my two-ton bag to Piazza Tancredi, where we picked up Angela, then drove the few short blocks to the railway station. Giacomo and Nico were already there. Suddenly I bitterly hated to leave. Francesca assured me I’d been no trouble. How very dear she is! Nico kissed me goodbye, promising to visit me in the U.S. Angela had disappeared, and returned with a panino, water, and a huge bar of chocolate. They saw me all the way to the waiting train and Giacomo lifted my bag aboard. Hospitality like theirs is rarer than rubies, and more valuable. We said our goodbyes and I was off.
How could I possibly express my gratitude, my jubilation at having made such wonderful friends in Lecce? Angela and Giacomo, Nico and Mario -- not only am I overjoyed at having them become a part of my life, but so deeply pleased that Toby, whom I look on as a son, has become such a happy, well-adjusted part of this world, this family. And of course Francesca has stolen my heart.
Arriving in Rome in the early evening, I did little more than check into my hotel, do a little window-shopping, and eat a fine dinner at Il Buco (a long-standing tradition). My room was bigger and better this time (same price) and I settled down for a long sleep, exhausted but utterly happy.
In the morning I bought my train ticket to the airport. As I didn’t leave until 6:00, I had the rest of the day for sight-seeing. After a short sojourn in the church of Santa Maria dei Angeli, I strolled across the Piazza della Repubblica to Palazzo Massimo, a superb Roman archaeological museum. There were a bevy of young students in front of me, and perhaps I was thought to be a teacher, for they let me in free.
There were the usual Roman portrait busts, which I have always found utterly absorbing in their lifelikeness. In their myriad details a true life is delineated. A statue of a Roman condottiere looked, with the addition of ten years and thirty pounds, remarkably like my cousin Doug. I passed through slowly. In one small gallery were three marvelous examples of Hellenic statuary. The one that delighted me most was the massive figure of a worn, weary Greek boxer; an exact replica of it sits in Roger Williams Park, a mere fifteen minute walk away from my house.
On the upper floors I found some of the greatest sights to be found in all Rome. In one dimly lit gallery were the frescoes from the Villa of Livia. This was a large, four-walled garden, with a delightful variety of trees and flowers, creeping vines and shrubs, birds flying and resting on branches, the entire work rendered with the utmost delicacy and accuracy. I cannot imagine how it was transported and installed in the museum. The rest of the frescoes were no less impressive, huge, complex, delicate. Some were nature scenes, some mythological scenes, others geometric fantasias. This museum is now my favorite in Rome, surpassing even the Capitoline.
There was a splendid gift shop in the museum, but I didn’t linger long. By now I was ravenous. My last meal in Rome was a tall beer and a heavenly Quattro Stagione pizza. I walked up the Via Veneto for my last gelato, a pistachio, the most expensive and least distinctive of the trip.
I am utterly without superstition, but as always, I chose to throw my coin into the Trevi fountain to assure a return to Rome. On the walk back up the Esquiline hill I bought a wallet, and returned to the hotel for my bag.

In the Rome airport, my bag was clearly far over the weight limit, but I wasn’t charged extra; a friendly smile and a pleasant word can accomplish wonders. I flew to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, where I had an eight-hour layover, too short a stay to find a hotel, too long to enjoy. I was surprised to find that after 11 p.m. this huge, bustling airport is deserted, the shops closed down. I found a Starbucks that stayed open all night, and settled down with my book, the collected stories of Roald Dahl. I can never sleep in airports, but eventually I set off to make an attempt at it. Trudging from one spot to another, looking for a chair, a table, anything to nap on at least kept from getting bored. Then a little past 3:00 -- bingo -- the place was suddenly buzzing with activity, people swarming about, shops opening with a bang,. Toward 4:00, I managed to find a recliner, a “comfort chair” in my departure terminal but by then I was almost afraid to drop off in fear of missing my plane. The flight back was relaxing, and I read the entire way. Back in Boston, I was greeted by Tom, and then drove home. A perfect trip. Yes, another one.