Let’s just say you’re feeling a little unclean after a trip through the gory Crime Museum in Rome - how about you wash your spirit with a visit to the Museum of the Sanitary Arts?
The Museum of the Sanitary Arts, founded in 1741, is housed inside the Santo Spirito Hospital, and is dedicated to the healing arts. The hospital itself was once a church, and dates back to the early 8th century. The museum itself is small, but boasts a big collection of anatomical wax models which were used at one time for teaching students in the arts of sanitation and healing. There are also some health-related oddities, such as a cannonball-sized liver stone that came from a camel and a 19th century skeleton with its nervous system mummified and intact. Lining the walls of the museum are some 17th century pharmaceutical vases in beautifully-painted majolica.
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When most people think of Venice, they think of gondola rides. And if you just think about them in the abstract, they sound like they’d be dreamy and romantic, right? That it’s absolutely one of those things you “have to” do when you’re in Venice, especially if you’re with a sweetheart. What most people don’t factor into their dream of a gondola ride in Venice are the crowds of people peering down at you from the city’s many bridges - which kind of ruin the whole intimate and romantic vibe - and the massive pile of cash you’re going to have to fork over in order to take even a short tour.
So - what do you do? Do you bite the bullet, hand over a big wad of money and try to ignore the gawkers, or do you forgo the whole experience? The answer depends largely on how much you’ll regret not doing it if you leave without hopping on a gondola. If you’ve dreamed of a gondola ride in Venice for ages, you’ve got to do it - no matter what it costs. If you’re on your honeymoon, you’ve kind of got to do it anyway, just because. For budget travelers who simply must ride in a gondola, gather a group together and split the cost - most gondolas can fit 6-7 people, and splitting the cost that many ways can really make it an affordable experience (even if it’s no longer romantic with such a crowd). As for the spectators on the bridges, you’ll just have to try to pretend they’re not there.
But if neither the two options laid out here - paying through the nose for a gondola ride or going without - sound acceptable, there is another way: take a gondola ride across the Grand Canal.
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I am not a religious person by any definition, and yet one of my favorite things to do when I’m traveling is visit churches. And this is especially true in Italy, a country that’s simply covered in churches. For one thing, Italy’s churches are often where you’ll find lots of any given city’s great art and/or architecture. For another, I just love soaking in the history of churches, imagining the number of people who have come through that space and worshiped there over the years. And despite my non-believer status, that’s even led me to attend church services in Italy a few times myself - something I highly recommend, even to other non-believers.
Churches in Italy are small communities, even if they’re in big cities. The people who go to those churches every week know each other well, so the large-ness of the city doesn’t matter inside those walls. I’m not Catholic, but I’ve seen enough Catholic masses to know the rhythm - so I find them fascinating and meditative, especially in languages I’m not 100% familiar with. And there’s always that heart-warming part where everyone stands up and greets their neighbors - which includes the visitors - with a handshake and a smile.
Once I went to church with my mother in the Cinque Terre town of Vernazza. It was a rainy Sunday, and the husband had taken the car and gone for the day to see a Formula 1 race. He was coming back that afternoon to pick us up so we could continue on our way, so we had that day to wander around Vernazza. Because of the rain, we ducked into the church that’s right off the main square - it’s a church that inexplicably has its backside turned toward the pretty piazza - and sat there enjoying the chilled air, the smell of the stones and the sound of rain outside.
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The husband and I are going on a fact-finding mission to Milan next month - him to have possible job-related meetings and me to consider what it might be like to live there. While his itinerary is going to be full of meetings and networking, mine is going to be full of finding places where I can get free WiFi access so I can work while I’m there.
Toward that end, I’ve been hunting around for information on free WiFi in Milan, and I’m pleased to report that it looks like there’s plenty of it. Of course, looks can be deceiving. Are these places which advertise free WiFi the kinds of places I’d feel welcome and comfortable hanging out for hours at a time, ordering the occasional drink or snack to help offset my internet usage? Is the WiFi consistent and reliable? I don’t know the answers to these questions, so I’m going to reach out to the folks who live in Milan whose blogs I read to see if they can help me out. Because really, even if the hotel we end up choosing has free WiFi, I think I’ll go stir-crazy if I’m confined to my hotel room - or even the hotel lobby - for a week.
So far, my research had yielded the following information:
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One of the things that can drive expats in Italy to the point of insanity is all the paperwork required to stay in the country legally. Certainly, some people stay past their legal timeframe and nothing bad happens to them, but for those who want to play by the rules, the Italian bureaucracy can make it incredibly challenging to do so. Fortunately, tourists don’t have to think about that kind of paperwork, right?
Wrong. Well, maybe. Kind of. Sorta.
Apparently there’s been a law in place for awhile in Italy that anyone who is visiting the country for more than eight business days must get a permesso di soggiorno (permit to stay) within eight business days of arriving in Italy. Not only does the law require this paperwork, it also costs a fee to obtain it.
Of course, most tourists spend longer than eight business days in Italy, but how many of them actually go through the trouble to get a permesso? I’m guessing not many. I’m going to Italy next month and will stay for more than eight business days, and I have no intention of jumping through the hoops of getting one. As a few of the comments on this post point out, getting a permesso isn’t even really possible for most tourists, who spend a few days at most in one given place. Without any kind of even semi-permanent address, registering for a permesso doesn’t give Italian authorities any more indication of where you are than if you didn’t bother to register.
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Animal lovers often find themselves taking photographs of foreign cats and dogs and other creatures when they travel - I know, because I do it myself. I’ve often been saddened during trips to Italy when I’ve seen so many homeless animals, clearly hungry and without human companionship - frankly, it confuses me why Italians don’t spay/neuter their animals as a matter of course, but that’s another issue entirely. One organization in Rome is attempting to do something about the stray cats in the Eternal City, and I wanted to help them out with a little publicity. Plus, you can help the people who work with this organization even if you never see any of the cats. Read on to find out how.
Torre Argentina is a Roman cat sanctuary housed in one of the many ancient temples scattered throughout the city. The center is staffed by volunteers seven days a week, some Italian and some from elsewhere, and they house and care for more than 250 cats at present. The name “Torre Argentina” comes from the temple site in which the cats took shelter once it was excavated in the late 1920s. From that time until 1993, the cats were fed occasionally by the women who are known as “gattare” (cat ladies). Then, in 1994, the people who currently run Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary took over, feeding and spaying or neutering all the cats they could. Since then Torre Argentina has worked to care for the stray cats of Rome, both in their own “shelter” and in the others around the city.
Sylvia and Lia, the generous and kind-hearted women who run Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary, make it their priority to spay and neuter the cats they find, and they also vaccinate cats which test negative for diseases such as feline leukemia. The ultimate goal with every cat that comes into their care is to find them a loving home with an adoptive family - and some of the Torre Argentina cats have been adopted by people as far away as the United States!
So, now we’re at the part where you can help!
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Some Italian news for your Sunday reading pleasure:
Ryanair isn’t the only low-cost airline that’s increasing their presence at Milan’s Malpensa airport - now easyJet will expand service at Malpensa over the next few years.
You’ll remember my post about the Trevi Fountain’s waters running red? Well, there are some news stories about it in English now - there’s one here about the dying incident and here about the clean-up afterwards.
Air pollution isn’t just unhealthy for living things, it’s apprently also bad for inanimate objects as well - officials are now saying that air …
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Do you like traveling in Italy? Well, of course you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this travel guide. Here’s another question - are you on Facebook? If you are, I’m extending an open invitation to join our brand-new Italy Travel group.
I hope the Italy Travel group will be a place where people who love Italy can share information and stories about their trips, get tips and tidbits from people who’ve been there, and make recommendations about where to go, what to see and what to eat. Anyone who likes traveling in …
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I can’t be in Italy all the time, which is a source of great frustration and sadness sometimes… For me, the next best thing to being in Italy is talking about Italy, and about travel in general. In particular, the annual BootsnAll holiday party is the perfect place to do that - and you’re invited!
WHAT: BootsnAll Holiday Party
WHEN: Saturday, December 1, 2007 from 7pm until 11pm
WHERE: Lucky Labrador Beer Hall, 1945 NW Quimby St., Portland OR 97209
What I love about our annual party is that it’s a bunch of like-minded travelers who are getting together - people who don’t think …
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Not long ago, the husband and I were watching an Italian football match on TV between Siena and someone else. The game was being played in Siena, and all around the borders of the pitch there were those rotating billboard ads which would change every minute or so. I’m pretty good at ignoring advertising like that, so I hadn’t noticed what was on them - until my husband said, “What did that say?”
Thank goodness for our ability to rewind live television, because thanks to his keen eye paying attention to the advertising and not the game, we found an interesting cultural note which I wanted to share with you. One of the rotating ads around the stadium in Siena says this:
Monte dei Paschi di Siena: Banca dal 1472
Even if you don’t read Italian, you can probably come pretty close to guessing that what the ad is saying is that the bank of Monte dei Paschi in Siena has been around and serving the people of Siena since the year 1472. Yes, that’s 20 full years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
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