an italian vacation and guides to rome and cinque terre and spoleto and festival dei due mondi and corniglia

Beginning in the late days of the 18th century, after the spectacular finds at Pompeii and Herculaneum had come to light, the English and American upper classes began to take trips to Italy, mostly as a sort of "grand tour" to "complete" one's classical education. These trips were also often romantic voyages. Many a Romantic poet or poetaster traipsed through both Greece and Italy in search of adventure, self-discovery, and inner freedom as their less poetically-inclined compatriots were seeking the external realities of freedom through Wars of independence or national consolidation.

This exploratory and romantic spirit still fuels the desire to visit Italy today, though other motives, ranging from genealogical exploration to a love of Italian fashion or food, complement this spirit. I had the good fortune to see Italy from several angles in my two week vacation. The purpose of this essay is to give an overview of the trip, with special attention to what you might consider doing as you think through what you want to accomplish in a future Italian vacation. Subsequent essays explore other aspects of Italy's past and present.

Getting My Bearings--An Overview

My trip lasted two weeks, but the thing that initially got me interested was an invitation from a friend who was a Stanford grad and who told me of a sort of "reunion" of "Stanford-in-Italy" people from the 1970s for five days in Rome in June 2006. One of their number is now the American Ambassador to Italy (Ronald Spogli), and so a dinner/reception at the Ambassadorial residence (Villa Taverna) would anchor the five-day event. Though I am not a graduate of Stanford I could be a guest for these five days, and then my friend and I would leave Rome for another period of sightseeing and learning across the country. I knew that the Stanford trips were legendary for their quality (as well as their cost!--even though this was not an officially University-sponsored trip, because it was not arranged by the University [sort of a legal disclaimer, you know]), but I decided that it would be a good idea to go along. After all, when the markets are going down you might as well spend money on something you enjoy rather than just seeing your fund balances slip away every day.

So, the first five days of my trip would be in Rome. If you are going to Italy, however, you should if at all possible spend from ten days to two weeks there while planning to take in at least two or three venues. We decided that after being in Rome for five days, a visit to the countryside or coastline would be good. A friend mentioned that he had been in Cinque Terre ("CT") , a series of five wonderfully-preserved medieval villages on the Mediterranean Coast just East of Genoa. We discovered that it only took about four hours by train to get from Rome to CT. The Trenitalia web site is set up so that you can punch in the cities between which you want to travel, and thus can easily plan the trip. Two days suffice to get a quick feel for CT. But I also wanted to visit Florence, and so we set aside some time for that city. Because it is inconvenient to have a car in Florence (and autos are prohibited in large parts of that city), we continued from CT to Florence by train.

But then we had to decide about whether we wanted to spend several days in Florence or try to "cover" one more venue before returning to the States. It was at this point we discovered what would be the anchor of the last four days of our trip--the Spoleto Music Festival. Begun in the late 1950s in this picturesque medieval Umbrian town of 23,000 about 160 km East of Rome, the Spoleto Music Festival ("Festival dei Due Mondi") draws artists of several genres from all over the Western world to perform for three weeks in late June-mid July each year. I will speak of the festival elsewhere, but suffice it to say that it provided the evening entertainment for us for four days, leaving us time to rent a car and make day trips during the days to many charming Umbrian villages and settings. Then, after four days in Spoleto, we returned to Rome to stay at an inexpensive hotel between downtown Rome and the Fiumicino Airport, where we could conveniently and inexpensively jump on the train in our final day to make it to the airport 2 1/2 hours before takeoff.

Let me finish this inaugural essay, however, with some practical advice on what you might consider doing in each location.

Guides, Hikes and Hotels

If you can afford it, the best way to maximize your time in Rome and Florence is with a guide. But all guides aren't born or educated equally, so to speak. Thus, unless you are with a large group, you need to have an idea of what you want to do, and a guide will often be able to get you in to the front of the line or even to see various exhibits when there are not a number of people present. The most outstanding guide of Rome I met on my trip was a young woman named Francesca Caruso. She spoke flawless and unaccented English, and had a depth of understanding and fluency of communication that convinced all of us that we truly were understanding the thing before us--whether it was the Sistene Chapel ceiling or the plumbing system of Ostia Antica. You can contact her at chris.fra@mclink.it (I get nothing for recommending here, if you were interested to know...). In addition, she was gracious enough to supply loads of other names of guides for Florence or other cities. We didn't actually have a guide in Florence, but Francesca's presence with us in Rome was magnificently helpful.

You don't go to CT, however, to hire a guide or be "shown around." Indeed, you show yourself around, and most of the time you do so by hiking the trail along the sea connecting the five cities, from Riomaggiore in the South to Monterosso al Mare in the North. Though Rick Steves thinks that Vernassa is the most alluring of these towns, and though we stayed in Monterosso (the most hotels in CT), if I were to return I would stay in Corniglia. Corniglia, the middle town, is the most undeveloped of the five, though we managed to meet a man who had restored several apartments and rooms in town and would rent them to you for less than 1/2 of what we paid in Monterosso. The Corniglia train station is at least 300 feet below the town, but proprietors generally will be willing to pick you up at the station. The man with whom we spoke hardly knew any English at all (English is de rigueur for proprietors of Monterosso establishments), but that isn't a problem if you learn some rudimentary Italian, and don't mind pointing at objects.

Finally, the best hotel at which we stayed was the San Luca Hotel in Spoleto. This four-star hotel costs 150 Euro per night, but it afforded a stunning inner patio, a spacious breakfast room and lounges, a pleasant garden and the most accommodating and helpful staff you could imagine. It is located at the bottom of the hill going up to the old city (it is good exercise!), and can be reached at sanluca@hotelsanluca.com or, by phone, 39 0743 223399.

Let's turn now to a brief description of Spoleto and the Spoleto Music Festival.

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