2007 DCS Italy tour, contemporaneous version
Created | Updated Sep 18, 2023
My trip to Italy with the Dedham Choral Society
DEDHAM CHORAL SOCIETY TOUR OF ITALY, 2007
I was privileged to be part of the Dedham Choral Society’s 2007 concert tour of Italy. We sang four concerts, went on walking tours of seven cities, and visited four major museums, all in ten days. Along the way, many of us wrestled with lost luggage, aching feet, sleep deprivation, and total confusion about what those Italian words meant. Nevertheless, it was an experience not to be missed. Here are some passages from the journal that I kept along the way:
Thursday, July 5, 2007
I was way too prepared. My two suitcases were fully packed a day ahead of time, with copies of all the important documents (passport photocopies, emergency contact lists, even the packing list itself) in each bag, as well as nestled somewhere on my person as I walked out the front door today at noon. The plane wouldn't leave until 5:30, but I wanted to be at Logan early.
Naturally, being too organized almost guarantees that the things you couldn't
have anticipated will start to go wrong. So, I got to Logan three hours early, arriving in the boarding pass line just as the printer for baggage labels broke down. Twenty minutes went by, with none of the staff knowing how to fix it. By now the line was very long. The staff began writing the baggage labels by hand.
We got to the plane on time, enjoyed a smooth flight to Paris Airport, and from Paris to Rome . Air France impressed with its absolutely delectable food.
Friday, July 6, 2007
We walked off the plane at Rome's Fiumicino Airport with high hopes for the rest of our trip. We didn't yet realize that the label-printer snafu at Logan would come back to haunt us. Most of us got our luggage and waited with Theri, our tour guide, by the exit. However, 8 of us waited in vain at the luggage carousel. Hours went by. The eight
luggage-deprived passengers went to file lost baggage claims. While they were doing that, I went to a nearby ATM machine to get my first supply of Euros.
The baggage snafu pushed us off-schedule by at least two hours. We had no idea that things would get even worse as we got into our bus and were driven to our hotel. On the plus side, our tour group had given us an economical hotel with a beautiful view of the Vatican. Beautiful views have a downside, however: they usually require that you be on a hill or an upper floor. So, when we got off the bus near our hotel, we discovered that (a.) the bus was too long to drive up the winding road to the hotel, (b.) the hotel didn't have shuttle buses, and (c.) we were two hours late for our first walking tour of Rome, so we needed to get ourselves and our luggage up to the hotel pronto so we could check in. Mamma Mia! All 48 of us--36 singers, 9 nonsinging members, a conductor, an accompanist, and our tour guide--walked up the hill. We checked in. We walked back down to the bus.
Our tour group had found an excellent and knowledgeable tour guide for our
first walking tour of Rome. Her name was Gabriela, an expert on antiquities who had written many books and taught at a nearby college. She was also a comedienne, or so she thought. Some of us soon wearied of her barbed humor about the unreliability of Italian men. Mercifully, we were given enough time to grab a bite of lunch at one of the cafes in the area. Then, back to the bus for another long walk up to the hotel.
By now, some of us had not slept in 36 hours, and we somehow had to stay awake long enough to have our first group dinner of the tour. Like our hotel, the secluded little restaurant we were directed to was nowhere near the spot where the bus dropped us off. This meant another long walk, past the Piazza Navone, with its fountain and statue of Hercules. All that walking had given some of us hearty appetites. Could we satisfy them while battling extreme fatigue? The restaurant turned out to be a major test for us. First we had appetizers, bits of toast topped with prosciuto or melted cheese. Half an hour later, plates of pasta appeared. Then another half hour elapsed, followed by salad. Then beef with potatoes, and finally tiramisu. There was no insomnia for any of us at our hotel that night!
Saturday, July 7
Hope springs eternal. Today the tide would turn in our favor. The hotel's Continental Breakfast did not offer much choice: bread and jam, two types of cold cereal, and a little cheese and ham, plus coffee. The coffee was good and strong, though. And this was a low-cost hotel, which was helping to make the tour affordable for us.
At 8:30 a.m., we walked down the hill to our bus (again!), to be shuttled to the Colosseum for a tour of the ruins of ancient Rome. Half of us had Gabriela again, but I was in the lucky group led by the charming Paolo. We had to wear electronic devices so we could hear Paolo while we toured the first and second floors of the Colosseum. Warned by my fellow touristers that I needed a hat, I purchased a nice blue visored cap that said "Roma" at a kiosk outside the Colosseum. Paolo led us through the Capitoline Hill area, and down the excavated path to the Roman Forum. He even treated us to a rendition of Marc Antony's "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech by Shakespeare. This should have been the end of his obligation to us, but we liked him a lot, and persuaded him to point us toward the Pantheon. On the way, he showed us a cluster of magnificent buildings (still in use as government office buildings) designed by Michelangelo.
A few blocks later, we came to the Pantheon, which was in immaculate condition despite being about 2,000 years old. Once a Roman temple, the Pantheon was now a Christian church. It has the form of an inverted bowl, with just an open round skylight at the top of the dome. The statues of ancient Roman deities and VIP's sit side by side with Renaissance Christian paintings. Visiting choral groups are allowed to sing one song, as a Russian group was doing when we came in. Some of us had hoped to sing "Amazing Grace," but not enough of us had brought our music.
Coming out of the Pantheon, we split up into smaller groups. The group I was in ate at a nearby restaurant that had been recommended by someone's brother-in-law. As a restaurant, it deserved high grades: good service, exemplary table linens, good food. The prices were a bit high, I thought: salmon pasta was 13 Euros. The mixed salad was 6 Euros. We took the #64 bus back to the hill where our hotel was. One member of our group had an artificial leg, which made walking up the hill a torment. We flagged down a taxi for him.
I had a few hours to kill before our evening concert, so I asked the concierge if the hotel had a laundry. The answer was no, but he helpfully told of a Laundromat not far away, across from a Farmacia. Naturally, it would have to be at the bottom of the hill. So, I walked down the hill (again) with a bundle of laundry, spent 8 Euros getting it washed, and walked back up the hill to hang it up in my room. Happily, by now the tour organizers had rounded up a shuttle bus to take us down the hill, and thence to the Chiesa Valdese di Roma (Valdesian Church of Rome) for the first concert of our tour.
We rehearsed in the church. Things went well. We walked a block or two to a restaurant for our supper. Service was leisurely, meaning a lengthy wait for the salad course, and another lengthy wait for the pasta course, which turned out to be lasagna.
Our schedule was tight, and we had to leave before the tiramisu arrived. Then, back to the church, where we changed into our concert attire (black tuxedo pants, white shirts, black ties, and cummerbunds for the men, black skirts and white blouses for the women). Our audience was not large, but our 9 non-singing members helped to make it seem larger. There were also a couple dozen people who were waiting for a bus in front of the church. They listened at the back of the church for quite a while, until their bus arrived.
The Valdesian is one of the few Protestant churches in Rome. It has stained glass windows arranged in three levels along the side walls of the sanctuary. The ceiling overhead is flat, not vaulted, giving the interior a boxy shape, not unlike Boston's Symphony Hall.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
For some of us, singing for a Catholic Mass at Saint Peter's Basilica was the most anticipated part of the tour. We were scheduled for a 12:15 p.m. Mass today, which meant being on the bus by 9:15 a.m., so we could drive to the Vatican parking garage and stand in the hot sun until being admitted at 10:30. The line we were in was long and slow-moving. We had been told that Vatican security was extremely strict. Bring nothing but your music, we were told. Not even money. Not even our hotel room keys.
The immensity of Saint Peter's does not dawn on you at first. Being intensely focused on the performance we were about to give, we didn't realize that five other Masses would be going on in other parts of the basilica simultaneously. During the Mass (which was conducted in Italian), I didn't understand more than 5% of what the priest was saying. A Vatican organist gave our conductor the cues to stand up and sing. We sang two American traditional hymns ("Amazing Grace" and "Wondrous Love"), Mozart's "Ave Verum," and Vianna's "Exultate Justi"). The Mass ended at 1:05. We filed out, past alcoves and recesses where other services were going on.
Back to the hotel we went to change for the afternoon's excursion to the Borghese Museum. Now that we had shuttle buses to negotiate the hill for us, the hotel didn't seem like such a bad deal. However, the shuttle bus could only carry half of us, so this meant two trips. Our reservation at the Borghese was for 3:00, which meant being back at the bottom of the hill at 2:00. What we gained by the convenience of the shuttle bus, we lost by not having time for lunch.
The Borghese Museum is thought by many to be among the most beautiful museums in the world. It has many paintings depicting the Madonna and Child, a
fitting theme for a group that had sung at Saint Peter's just a few hours earlier.
Unfortunately, art (even great art) does not fill your belly. It took several trips up and down the stairs to find the museum's café. When I did find it, my search was rewarded with a plate of tomato slices and a large mound of mozzarella cheese, and a few pie-like tarts.
Monday, July 9, 2007
We had been pressed for time at every point of our tour so far, but today seemed the worst ever, as we needed to check out of our hotel, pick up box breakfasts (but no coffee!!) by 6:30 a.m., and be on the bus by 7:00. Then we were off to the Vatican Museums for the morning. Other people were lined up at the front door when we got there. The line seemed to run on for miles. Our reservation was for 8:00 a.m., and we barely made it.
I was lucky enough to be in Paolo's group again when we began our tour. We were given headphone sets, though mine only worked intermittently. Various rooms held ancient Greek and Roman statues. Further on, we were led through a hallway lined with huge tapestries, and then a room full of period maps. Finally, we arrived in the Sistine Chapel, where we were allowed 30 to spend minutes. Silence was required in the Chapel, but large numbers of people were there, and every so often a recorded voice would demand silence in six or seven different languages. The ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel are sublime in their depiction of pink and golden flesh against a sky-blue background.
I hated to leave after the 30 minutes were up, but Paolo was required to give us a more in-depth tour of Saint Peter's than we had had the day before. We learned that Saint Peter's is the largest church in Christendom, and that it houses the bodies of earlier popes, plus religious relics, and that it sits atop an earlier church that was built on the spot where Saint Peter was crucified by the Romans.
We said goodbye to Paolo and emerged from Saint Peters. Across the street from the Vatican entrance is the former residence of Pope Paul VI, which has been converted to a gift shop. Around the corner is a self-service restaurant with acceptable coffee and enough food to keep us going until lunch.
We met at the obelisk in Saint Peter's Square, and were led to our bus for the trip to Perugia. We stopped for lunch at a self-service restaurant that straddled the highway.
Our hotel in Perugia is designed with a jazz motif. The lowest level, which houses most of the dining areas, has laid out the design of an enormous piano keyboard on the floor in the Internet room. There are musical notes on the room keys as well as the walls in the guest rooms.
After checking into our hotel, we rode to the center of Perugia and had a tour of the square, after which we were turned loose for supper. At the top of the hill in the main square, you can see the mountains in the distance, and several other hill towns a few miles away. Perugia has depended on a wall for most of its history, as have the other towns we saw. The nearest of them had a substantial wall, which the tour guide informed us was the "new wall," built in the 13th century. The "old wall" was put up in the 3 rd century.
The tour guide told us to try some of the local Perugian food at restaurants on the Via Rocchi, a narrow, steep road surrounded by stone buildings that had probably been there for centuries, if not millennia. I sat at an outdoor table for bean-and-barley soup and a simple sandwich. (Later, another tour member told me I had chosen a place famous for its food and jazz performances. Who knew?)
Being a hill town, Perugia is laid out on many levels. To facilitate getting around, a series of escalators leads upwards from the bus station. The bus was to pick us up at the station at 9:00 p.m. While we waited, we listened to a free jazz concert at the back of the parking lot.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
We could sleep a little longer this morning, because the full tour of downtown Perugia didn’t start until 10:00 a.m. For seven of the eight luggage-deprived tour members, there was good news, as the missing luggage rematerialized just before we left Rome. Anyway, at 10:00, we rode the bus back to the bus station, and then rode the many escalators up to Italian Square, where our local tour guide showed us statues and fountains and important buildings. One such statue was by Perugina (originally Vannucci), whose other work we would later see in Florence. Our guide was a nice man, but his accent got in the way. He talked about Perugia’s struggles to keep from being invaded, and it’s long rivalry with Siena. The formidable walls that he showed us were supposed to have been impregnable. Some walls still stood, but others had been demolished.
At noon, we were dismissed for the afternoon. I wrestled with three different ATM’s. The *best* that I could get was a “technical difficulties” message. Then I tried my other bank card, and got enough Euros to tide me over. I retired to the Via Rocchi, and ate tuna salad with bread and coffee. Tired and frustrated, I caught a bus back to the hotel, where I swam in the rooftop pool. I sent messages in the Internet, and feasted on stuffed rabbit in the hotel restaurant. Terry and Mary, two other members of our tour, sat at my table and provided stimulating conversation (Mary is an art historian) about Global Warming and the location of key paintings in Italian museums.
Meanwhile, a few other members of our tour group were attending a performance
of a Handel opera at the Spoleta festival. Some *other* members were at a Keith Jarrett concert in Perugia. Thanks to Terry and Mary, I was more than happy with my evening.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
We roused ourselves early for an all-day expedition to Assisi. We would be singing a concert at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at 6:00 p.m. Our local tour guide met us upon our arrival at parking lot A, and handed out headphone sets. We were given a tour of the Basilica of Saint Francis. There are murals/frescos by Giotto depicting different scenes from Saint Francis’ life in the main part of the church. Downstairs, there are more Giottos and a smaller chapel. One floor below that, one can see glass cases which contain St. Francis’s robe (which sounded like “rope” because of the tour guide’s accent), his only surviving letter, and other artifacts.
As we filed out of the basilica, we returned the headphones and were asked how many of us wanted a taxi to take us up the hill to the main square. As it turned out, the taxi would have been a good idea for many of us, if we had known how steep our climb would be. The main square contains a fountain, and an information office for tourists, and the Temple of Minerva. There is also a farmacia (where I bought toothpaste for 12 Euros), a restaurant (The Central Café), and some nice pastry shops. I would revisit the square later, but our tour guide pressed us to continue on to the church of Santa Chiara [Saint Clare], and finally to parking B, whence our bus had been moved after dropping us off at lot A. Our concert attire was on the bus; we would change into it later, but first I ate lunch at a self-service café (rice salad and chicken with fried potatoes), and then looked throughout Assisi for a shop that sold black ties. My only remaining tie was in bad shape, but I never did manage to replace it. Helen, another tour member, gave some safety pins, and I was able to manage with the old tie for the remaining concerts.
At 3:00, we returned to the bus to collect our concert attire. We started the long migration in search of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where we were to rehearse starting at 4:00. We got to the church early, and were joined by Susan Baker, our Soprano soloist, who had skipped the walking tour because of illness. A half mile further, there is a building where we were able to change into our concert dress. Following the rehearsal, there was a 5:00 Mass in the church, and then at 6:00 we sang our concert. There is a lot to like about this church. Unlike the ornate style of Saint Peter’s or the Basilica of Saint Francis, Maria Maggiore has beige walls and dark brown wood. There is very little art to be seen, but the effect is one of simple elegance. The concert went quite well, and was reasonably well-attended (there were fliers advertising our concert in the main square).
Susan rose to the occasion with a great solo. Afterwards, I celebrated with cheese ravioli in orange sauce and a green salad with tuna at a nearby restaurant..
Tired and footsore, we began straggling back to our bus in lot B. Although the call was for 9:30 p.m., the last few stragglers didn’t arrive until 10:00.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
This was moving day. The original plan called for us to check out of the hotel and be all ready with luggage at 7:45 a.m. The tour guide changed this to 8:30 if we promised to bring our luggage down when we came down for breakfast. The bus driver started loading luggage at 8:00. Somehow, this worked. Soon we were on the road to Florence for a quick tour, and eventually to our hotel in Montecatini Terme. The scenery was nice, though I missed most of it from dozing (Assisi had left me very tired).
The Arno River is a very prominent landmark in Florence, so it was fitting that the bus would let us off there, midway between two of the bridges. The tour guide instructed us to be there at 3:00 sharp, as it was illegal for the bus to stay very long at the spot. As before, we had two local guides, each taking half of the group.
The guide led my group across the street, and into Florence, stopping first at the Church of Santa Croce. Many famous citizens of Florence are buried here, including Dante, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Galileo. A dour-faced statue of Dante stands guard at one side. Brunelleschi is said to have been the most prominent architect for the church.
As we walked through the square that faces the church, we noticed a high-water mark from the infamous flood of November 1966. The mark was on the side of a building, at least seven feet above the street. Further on, we stopped at the Palazzo Vecchio, in front of which there are numerous statues. Pride of place goes to the Fountain of Neptune, with nymphs by Giambologna and a central statue of Neptune by Bartomoleo Ammannati. Michelangelo is said to have dismissed Ammannati’s sculpture as a “sack of potatoes.” A copy of Michelangelo’s David stands prominently to one side in front of the Palazzo, and other notable statues are placed in front of a building to the right of it.
As we continued walking, we passed the workshop where Leonardo Da Vinci painted the “Mona Lisa,” and were told of a plumber who stole the painting from the Louvre so as to return it to Florence, which he considered the rightful home for it.
His efforts were quickly undone, however.
Our walking tour ended at the Duomo [technically, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore], among the largest and most impressive churches in the world. The Duomo sits atop an earlier church dating from the 6th or 7th century, and required 142 years to build [1294-1436]. Such Renaissance architects as Giotto and Brunelleschi were involved in building it, with Donatello and others contributing sculptures and mosaics. Brunelleschi’s dome was considered the greatest engineering feat of its time because he used no scaffolding. Facing the Duomo is the Baptistry building, on the doors of which are bronze panels depicting scenes from the life of John the Baptist and other Biblical figures. Known as the “Gates of Paradise,” the panels were completed in 1452 by Lorenzo Ghiberti. They seemed new to us, because these were recently-cleaned copies
[the originals were safely stored elsewhere].
We were now free for a few hours of lunching and sightseeing. The long lines waiting for admission to the Duomo were daunting, so I went elsewhere. The Ponte Vecchio [“Old Bridge”] became my destination instead. The local guide had said that,
During World War II, the Germans destroyed six of Florence’s seven bridges. The Ponte Vecchio was the one that they spared. Many jewelry shops line the bridge. Tourists like me were out in force.
At 3:00, we were back on the bus and on the way to our hotel in Montecatini Terme. It delighted me to find that my room was next to the swimming pool. And what a pool it was, perhaps the biggest hotel pool that I have ever seen! I swam a great many laps, until the pool became crowded. Then we all sat down to dinner in the hotel dining room, for a meal of cheese lasagna, salad, beef with potatoes, and chocolate pudding.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Although I am not superstitious, I was a little jittery about having to sing a concert on Friday the 13th. Nevertheless, the day started auspiciously with a simple but effective breakfast assortment in the dining room: a coffee urn, a pitcher of milk, a bowl of fruit cocktail, some granola, some ham, yogurt with three different fruit toppings, and the usual rolls and jam.
This was the day of our trip to Lucca, a city distinguished for its massive city walls, which had helped keep out the armies of Florence, Pisa, and other rivals over
a period of many centuries. The walls are still intact, and now they have walking/jogging/bicycling paths on top, all the way around. Our local guide took us to see San Michele Church and San Martino Church, explaining that on September 3 every year, all the Luccans carry lighted candles in glasses to the San Martin Church in honor of a cedar-wood crucifix in the nave. This crucifix bears the figure of a smiling Christ, and is believed to have been carved by Chris’s contemporary Nicodemus.
Another area of interest is Napoleon Square, where Napoleon’s sister was installed as ruler following the French invasion of the city. The square itself dates from 1806, and reflects the ruler’s desire to see open space when she went out to her balcony.
A statue of Giacomo Puccini adorns a piazza near San Michele. Nearby is Puccini’s birthplace, but it is not yet ready to receive tourists. In my free time, I walked around the walls of Lucca, appreciating the many large trees which provided shade on such a hot, sunny day.
Our next stop after Lucca was Bagni di Lucca, where we were scheduled to give our last concert. The day had gone well so far, so we were not prepared for the hassles that greeted us in Bagni di Lucca. Among these were: no place to change into our concert attire for the concert; a restaurateur whose idea of a “light supper” was risotto, pasta, and beef with ratatouille and potatoes; sharing the stage with a local Italian gospel choir (“The Joyful Angels”) whose sound and repertoire were completely different from ours;
And complete unfamiliarity with the idea that a weeknight concert should end before midnight. We managed to sneak out around 12:30, arriving back at our hotel at 1:00 a.m.
