TriumphAnt

Early in the trip, especially in the first few days after my sciatic pinch had really taken hold, Leslie and our travelling companions were being nothing less than incredibly helpful in making it as easy as it could be made for me to get around.

As we were preparing to disembark the train in Florence after our quick rail trip from Venice, Leslie had already had my suitcase seized from behind by a helpful young woman who – we figured later – must have boarded the train the moment it came to a stop.

Stepping down onto the platform, cane firmly in hand, I saw our travel-mates with our remaining suitcase – Leslie’s – along with their own, amid a trio of young women of similar age to the one now bringing my suitcase down off the train.

In short order, one of our co-travellers had made it clear that they would proceed on foot to our hotel, a ten-to-15-minute walk away, but that Leslie and I were definitely going to need a taxi.

(No doubt you can see what’s coming, but it’s a good cautionary tale to get on the record anyway.)

So with me hobbling along on my cane, Leslie and I were trailed by two of the girls, each one towing one of our wheeled carry-on suitcases, while their two companions (I really want to use the word “confederates” but that would be an insult to Robert E Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia) preceded our little convoy and helped clear a path through the station crowd to get us to the line of people queuing for the taxis that were already arriving in a stream at the taxi stand.

It felt like about a kilometre and a half but, in reality, the distance we covered across the station floor was probably no more than about a hundred metres or so. And without a whit of embarrassment or hesitation, our quartet of porters and blockers simply brought us to the front of the taxi line in which about 30 people were already gathered. Spotting my cane, they generously parted like the waters of the Red Sea under Moses’ staff.

At this point one of our accompanying quartet, who had managed one of the bags, approached me and with a very demure expression on her face held out her hand. Quickly motioning to her three companions, she said, “five, five, five and (touching her own arm) five... 20 Euros per favore”.

“Wait, what?” I said aloud... “20 Euros???” (At the time about $26.) Again she smiled ever so sweetly and mimed her four-count... “Five for each.”

Now I really need to make it clear that I was not going to pay nothing, because being at the front of the taxi line felt damned good, but neither was I in a mood to be hosed that badly. So in my turn, I did a quick finger point to the two rolling carry-ons and held up two fingers, “10 Euros.” Her smile vanished but she was not done yet.

Reaching into her pocket, she extracted a crumpled piece of paper, smoothed it out and gave it to me. (Photo)

At this point, I think a little more detail is required to give you, dear readers, more of a sense of just who had helped us through the crowd. They were four young, healthy women, probably no more than about 21 or 22 years old each, with features suggesting Central American birth complimented by very well-deployed make-up. Without exception, they were fashionably dressed in form-fitting hole-free various colours of denim pants with equally fashionable blouses, fully accessorized with co-ordinated belts, scarves and shoes. If this is the face of homelessness in Florence, I thought, it could obviously be a heck of a lot worse. My other thought was if the young woman who handed me the note was indeed the mother of three hungry children, either they were triplets or she had been a child bride.

At this point, I simply stepped to the first cab in line, repeated “10” and pulled out my wallet. And of course Mr Murphy had to step in with one of his damned laws. All I had were 20-Euro notes.

I wavered a second, but must have muttered something like “No...” to myself because I pushed it at the taxi driver who had already loaded our bags into his trunk. “You have two tens?” I asked. It took him a second but I think he looked behind me and knew immediately what was happening. He smiled, took my 20 and gave me two tens. I turned and passed one to the 21-year old Guatemalan supermodel with the three starving waifs at home, said “Mille Grazie; thank you” and clambered into the open rear door nearest to me.

“Benevenuto a Firenze,” I said to Leslie, and we were off to the hotel.

And yes, their help was worth ten Euros to my now-throbbing hip and leg. Just not 20.

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When I was growing up pre-internet, I remember just revelling in stories and “gladiator”-style or religious-themed movies in which the Roman Army was featured prominently. A seemingly unstoppable force at the height of the Empire’s power and reach, the Roman Army established itself during a run of almost 2,000 years in outposts ranging from Hadrian’s Wall in the northern UK (“Britannia”) through a ring of power that completely encircled the Mediterranean, spilling as far south as present-day Syria and as far east as the present day Black Sea ports.

As the symbol of Roman authority and might, the army and its leaders were both feared as conquerors and respected as police who kept ruthless order in the lands they subjugated.

And always they were depicted – whether in ancient art or in modern Hollywood treatments of their stories – marching under red and golden banners and insignia displaying the four-letter notation, “SPQR”. The standard is even a staple when the Roman Army is a modern-day recreation by military buffs and re-enactors.

SPQR – Senatus Populusque Romanus (the “Q” being nestled within “Populusque”) – translates as “The Senate and the People of Rome” and its appearance at the very vanguard of Rome’s legions was simply a way to inform the conquerees, “Hi, we represent SPQR and we own you people as of right now. Wanna argue? Talk to the large, armoured legionnaire over there with the sharpened Roman short sword at the end of his exceedingly powerful arm.”

Well how the mighty are fallen.

Throughout the parts of Rome we saw, it didn’t take me long to notice that the covers of sewers and storm drains with very few exceptions include a cast of “SPQR” somewhere in their design. (Look up AND look down is always excellent advice when you’re on local walking tours in a city. You see the darndest things!)

Turns out that several modern sources note that its use in waterworks-related devices is simply a tribute to the millennia of Rome’s innovations in both bringing water in (their famed aqueducts) and using it as a medium of carrying waste out.

Although I also found a couple hilarious sidebar notes: its use in present-day London open-air markets is a tongue-in-cheek expression of the stall owners’ business philosophy: “Small Profits; Quick Returns”, while another source said that the motto’s abbreviated display by some conquered peoples was actually a message from them that “Sono Porci Questi Romani” – “These Romans Are Pigs”. (That second story is certainly out there but it may also be more fable than fact. Seems the internet is not yet universally acknowledged as the final authoritative citation in serious academic research.)

TriumphAnt: You may be a lot of things here, but you’ll never be bored. Now WAKE UP! Here’s one more postcard for this post.

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Thanks to the soaring popularity of “foodie” television, it’s no longer a surprise to foreigners to discover that a traditional Italian meal actually consists of three separate courses (four if you count some form of sweet for dessert). But while perhaps no longer a surprise, the sheer volume of what makes up a course can still come as a shock.

Leslie and I had gotten to Italy a full day ahead of our travelling companions, whom we were scheduled to meet (and did) the next day at Rome’s rail station.

So that first night we opted for a dinner choice through the simple expedient of walking along a few nearby streets and reading some restaurant menus. We found a wonderful little walk-down called the Taverna Barberini and, over a pre-dinner drink, we thought an antipasto would be nice so we ordered one. Five minutes later, this separate trolley arrived tableside with the cheery message from our waitress, “Your antipasto”.

My first thought was that this was the entire antipasto buffet and we were to select a couple spoonfuls from a few of the items. But no, this entire array of 13 separate dishes on a trolley that could comfortably seat four people around it was intended solely for the two of us! As an appetizer.

“Antipasto”, incidentally, literally means “before the pasta” and pasta in a traditional Italian dinner is actually only the official first course, or “Primo piatti”. After that, you’re expected to order a “secundo piatti”, the main course consisting of a meat or fish entree with a side of some sort of veggie. Then you’re handed a pheasant feather and steered to the “vomitorium” to make room for dessert.

(That last sentence is a complete fabrication, but what is not is that pasta in fact is not considered to be a main course in and of itself the way it is in a dinner served at a Canadian kitchen table.)

I did opt for a pasta course as well, with a carbonara sauce – a lush combination of eggs, cream, bacon and cheese that gave a wonderful smokiness to the whole dish.

We had some other amazing dinners while in Italy. In a coastal city like Venice or Rome, you really can’t go wrong by ordering a fish entree (and they are universally brilliant at cooking and serving sea bass, something I tried to grill once at home only to see it vanish in flaking pieces between the bars of my barbecue’s grilltop. Pan frying or cedar planking from now on. In Florence, a more centrally-located city, I had one of the best-cooked, tenderest and most flavourful steaks (a massive tenderloin filet bathed in a wild blueberry sauce!) I have ever had in my life at an incredible restaurant called the Taverna del Bronzino.

Package recommendation: A very nice three-star hotel called the Orto de Medici is centrally located in Florence; the Taverna del Bronzino is two blocks away. A head of Chianti-induced mellowness to help anaesthetize an aching hip while on a gentle flagstone sidewalk stroll back to your hotel after it has been washed by a light late summer rainfall is the stuff that can give a screenwriter inspiration, I tells ya! Highly recommended – except the “aching hip” part. I don’t recommend that to anyone.

As we exited the Bronzino we passed a glass case displaying the fruits of a nearby upholsterer’s hobby passion – a huge and intricately detailed scale model of British Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory.

We still don’t know why that model was on display in that restaurant in that city in Italy, a country that wasn’t even involved in Nelson’s most famous battle in “Victory” – against a combined French and Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805, but clearly it was an incredible labour of love by the builder and, as a Michelin Guide might say, well worth a diversion if you’re ever in the neighbourhood.

(Photo: www.historicships.com)

The Bronzino “Victory” was pretty close to the dimensions indicated for this model and was certainly at least as meticulously detailed, if not more so. One of our travelling companions has made Nelson a personal passion and he was completely delighted by our serendipitous find of the model.

Random factoid: Shortly after you sit down in any Italian restaurant – ANY Italian restaurant – you will be asked if you want water. When you say “Yes please”, you will then be asked immediately, “Still, or gas?” In hindsight, of course, it is blindingly obvious what the question means but the very first time we were asked, I wasn’t even sure I had heard the brief question correctly. Fortunately, Leslie has had more extensive Italian travel experience than me and answered immediately, “Still”. And a bottle of NON-carbonated mineral water was brought to our table. Oh.