Week 11: Things

21 September - 27 September: Italy - Switzerland - Eindhoven

St Francis´s Basilica was beautiful, with all the Giotto frescoes and so forth. Such majesty and richness in terms of art and history. These are things that the saint would have shunned, preferring to be buried, probably, in an unmarked pauper´s grave. He did ask to be buried on the Hill of Hell, so named for there, criminals used to be executed. It is now called the Hill of Paradise and Assisi is the city of Peace. It was a wonderful, serene place, and the basilica gave us great rest.

That Colosseum is … big.

My newly acquired architectural knowledge (guess what, I bought a book on the subject!) told me that Orvieta’s incredible cathedral is indeed Romanesque. In Todi, there´s a beautiful one too, with lots of light and hardly anything else to distract. You can meditate easily there.

We paid €32 for a couple of espressos, a shared dessert and a lemon juice. But if your view is the Pantheon, and you are served by the most cheerful staff on the planet, then you are more than happy to part with your money. This is the life.

We were desperate to eat. We only had one place to go at the campsite, after having driven for 7 hours and too tired to go into town. It was the campsite restaurant. What did we have? Well, over a couple of days we had:

• Layers of filo pastry alternating with melted goatscheese, served with a sprinkling of pistacchio nuts and drizzled honey.




• Buffalo mozarella and cherry tomato pizza.




• Porcini and duck breast risotto.




• Fried eggs with black truffle.




• Pear filled ravioli with provolone fondue.




• Radicchio and parmesan tortelloni with walnuts.




• And some wonderful local red wine, each glass as good as the last.

The lion monument in Luzern is indeed, as Mark Twain sad, the saddest and most moving piece of rock in all the world. Mammoth in size, he is a remembrance to those who Swizz mercenaries who fell in the Tuileries in 1792. How an image hewn from rock can stir up such emotion can only have been done with intense feeling. The photo we took is trapped momentarily on Edwin´s camera, so the one you see is one I found online.

One last thing I forgot to write about back in week 7. When we were in Slovenia, we decided to ride along the Soca river, renowned for its topaz like sparkle over luminous giant pearl coloured rocks. This we had to see! We hopped on our bikes and began the bikeride of death. Rarrrrrrrr! Well, we managed about 3km before I lost my nerve. These are Dutch bikes we were riding, with about 3 gears, and high handlebars. These roads are curvey, hilly and full of motorcyclists and avid canyoners and kayakers. I wanted to keep my skin on in one piece, so we rode home and took the car. We saw some wonderful sights, not least these wonderful stone piles. We admired them at length and I thought, I will add a rock to this pile, as evidence of my having been here, and of me being part of this wonderful ritual of sorts. Edwin thought, `Yes, I too will lay my own stone,´ upon which, he did so. Mind you, I was videoing it as the tower of stones came crashing down and all I could see was Edwin´s sheepish face amidst the settling dust.