Author: Lee Hausman

In Lovely Florence

Lee Hausman
There’s a certain simplicity to things in Europe. Train stations, for example, are very simple: walk in the front, pass by the tabachi (magazine stand) and walk out on the platforms. No airport-style waiting rooms, no security checks, no shopping mall. So it was easy for me to find my Eurostar train this morning and be on my way to Florence. Oddly enough, there are also no conductors checking your ticket as you board and you could be halfway to somewhere else before discovering you’re on the wrong train. Generally, a lot of things in Europe operate on this kind of semi-honor system – you’re expected to have your ticket but there are no ticket takers checking each person. There are instead occasional rail car sweeps in which tickets are demanded for inspection with very stiff fines if you don’t have one. This is true on trains, buses, boats and probably lots of other places as well. It cuts down on staff requirements and thus costs and speeds up the process of going anywhere. A great system but it would never work in the U.S. because someone would claim that their rights were being violated, of course.
 
The Eurostar train was clean, comfortable (in 1st Class) and fast and the 3-hour trip to Florence was just 38€ or about $42; a bargain by most standards. A quick taxi ride (oy, what a plunge back into the car culture) to my hotel and voila! I was ready to go exploring in Florence. Most of the city’s tourist attractions are grouped around the old town core and a "pedestrian-friendly" zone that keeps private cars out of the area. There are still plenty of taxis, delivery trucks, bicycles, scooters, and other 3- and 4-wheel vehicles to keep you on your toes when crossing streets, however.
 
Large areas in this zone are set aside for outdoor market stalls and leather goods seem to be a big sales item here. This is densely commercial tourism and quite unlike Venice. I prowled around and got my bearings, sized up some of tomorrow’s destinations, and then went back to the hotel for an hour of rest until dinner time.
 
I had dinner tonight at Osteria di Pecorino and it was a very nice meal. I started with a salad of feta cheese and melon pieces with basi, moved on to gnocchi with tomato sauce and mozzarella, and then the main event: shredded chicken with crispy-fried baby artichoke hearts. Finished up up with creme brule and accompanied it all with the fine house red wine. There is a certain rhythm to Italian meals and you are expected to linger. There is none of this "turn over the table" pressure you find in the U.S.; I was at mine for 2.5 hours and during that time no other table in the place had changed diners either. A different dining attitude is required because the staff is very fast at taking orders and getting food and drink out but they slow down quite a bit when it comes to dessert, coffee, and the bill. You will do no one any good by being antsy. I enjoyed every bite and waddled over here to the Internet cafe with a smile on my face and my wallet 52€ lighter (which was quite reasonable).
 
Tomorrow: the Uffizi Gallery and my absolute favorite Botticelli painting.
 
 

Farewell to Venice

Lee Hausman
Morning was a great time for beating the crowds at the Accademia Gallery, St. Mark’s Basilica, and the Guggenheim Collection yesterday, as I did. The art was very interesting and the architecture amazing. I’m not a huge medieval art fan but it’s fascinating to see the artists working with 3-D perspective and often large-scale works.
 
Venice, as mentioned earlier, has no vehicles. Even bicycles are banned, which I guess makes growing up here tough on a kid. As a matter of fact, the population is shrinking and aging and the government subsidizes rents to encourage people to stay in Venice. The water buses are the equivalent of a subway system and very convenient once you get the hang of it. It’s interesting to watch the pas de deux between the boat captain jockeying the throttle and the conductor with his deck line when docking at a stop; but it’s all very smooth, born no doubt out of long experience.
   
The area around the Rialto Bridge is just the worst, most touristy place in Venice (worse, I think, than St. Mark’s). You may know that one of my pet peeves is people who stop dead in the mouth of an escalator and, sadly, that spirit is alive and well here in Venice. People just stop in the middle of bridges, sidewalks, wherever, alone and in groups, with suitcases, boxes, dogs, and decide to consult their maps, take their pictures, enjoy the view, etc. The resulting pedestrian traffic clog is just amazing.
 
I spent the afternoon wandering and got well away from the tourist areas. Venice is an island, after all, so it’s impossible to really get lost but it was great to just roam without a care. The weather was great, another 75-degree day with clear, clear blue skies. I had lunch in a neighborhood cafe with no name and my flawless Italian fooled the locals for .001 seconds. Luckily, the locals were friendly and welcoming and the sandwich was excellent (there’s nothing like having to choke down lousy food so as not to offend the locals).
 
What do I now have in common with Hemingway, Chaplin, Capote, Byron, and Welles? After a brief late afternoon rest, I dressed for dinner and headed out to Harry’s Bar, which all of the above and many other glitterati have frequented. It’s small and expensive but the bartender uses unorthodox and highly entertaining techniques. I had my requisite one cocktail (a tiny martini served in an oversized shot glass for 14 euros), took in the abience (white dinner jacketed staff vs. good awful attired tourists) and headed off for dinner.
 
My thanks to my friends Joanie and Chuck Tooley of Montana for their recommendation of the restaurant Al Peoceto Risorto, where I had dinner. Located west of the Rialto Bridge, adjacent to the fresh food market, I had a great meal there. One thing about Italian food: restaurants serve meals made with the best ingredients the chef could find that day, not with the leftover stuff from the weekend. The results are that each bite deserves attention and focus and is really wonderful. My test of an Italian kitchen is to order a pasta course of pasta aglia olio (basic pasta with garlic and oil). If you can’t make that correctly, you’re lost. Last night’s dish included a touch of chili and was perfecto. Veal Scallopine with Lemon Sauce, a mixed salad and, of course, bread completed my meal. I finished off with a flan-like confection that was heaven. The vaporetto ride home in the dark with all the lights reflecting off the Grand Canal was lovely.
 
I have concurred that Venice just might dethrone Paris as my choice for the world’s most romantic city. The ambience is just right for romance. For example, everyone holds hands here: husbands and wives, husbands and someone else’s wife, couples, women, mothers and daughters. 
 
I’ll do some more wandering today and hope for another good meal tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll bid a reluctant farewell to Venice and head by high-speed Eurostar train to Florence with it’s promise of great art. It will seem odd getting back to a place where there are cars. Venice has been a marvelous experience and I hope you’ll stay with me as I head south! Ciao for now…
 

Italian Opera For Me

Lee Hausman
Sometimes you just get lucky. Months ago I determined via Internet that all tickets for an opera performance at Venice’s amazing La Fenice Opera House during my stay were sold out. However, hoping I might scoop up a cancellation or something I went by the box office 3 hours before the show yesterday and wound up with a front row seat in the Royal Box for the matinee! The Royal Box is THE BEST seat in the house (which I shared with 12 others) and the experience and performance were fabulous. The opera was Verdi’s "Luisa Miller", featuring the classic opera themes: wronged lovers, blackmail, seduction, miscommunications, suicides, and eventual retribution (no happy ending though). The opera house is unbelievably ornate and throughout intermission folks kept coming up to have a look at and through the Royal Box. The music and singing were wonderful, the production design was spare, stark, and very clever, and I was in heaven for 2.5 hours. The Royal Box even has a private exit which bypasses the throngs in the lobby for a quick after show getaway. 
 
And now, some Venice observations:
 
– Italy requires you to show some ID, like a passport, which is photocopied, before you can use the Internet (at your hotel or Internet cafe alike).
– Red wine is frequently served chilled here and it’s refreshing.
– A meal ends with a dessert and then later coffee or tea (not served together as in the US).
– The "bar" at a restaurant may just be the front counter where the cash register is and dining room patrons often have to wend their way between bar patrons to get to a table. Bar patrons may actually spill out into the street if space is tight.
– There is no smoking now inside Italian bars and restaurants which has made for a much nicer eating experience.
– Stores are incredibly energy conscious. For example, at the Internet cafe they even turn off the Coke machine overnight.
– Think of all the things that are delivered by truck in your neighborhood; now consider that all those things have to be delivered by boat and handtruck in Venice. You see delivery boats with all sorts of stuff piled on them in the canal. There’s even a UPS boat.

As I feared, most Internet cafes are not interested in allowing me to install the MSN Spaces tool that you need to have in order to upload pictures taken with my camera to this blog. I’ll continue to post or provide links to pictures already on the web (and I’ll keep asking about the installation – maybe I’ll get lucky again).

 

Venice Delights

Lee Hausman
Venice is beautiful –  I’m writing to you from "La Serrenissima" and enjoying myself quite a bit. Getting here was a job but all is fine now that the jet lag has faded. What a place – the fantastical architecture, the canals, the gondolas, even the sunlight – all create the impression of being someplace special.
 
Internet Cafes are, surprisingly, not very common here and though my hotel is equipped, I thought I’d not hog their one computer for this post. I’m also using a non-US keyboard so bear with me if there are any weird typos.
 
My frequent flyer-provided 1st class ticket on Virgin Ailines was a little disappointing. The service and food was great as always but Virgin has installed these "fold flat" seats that didn’t work well for me. They’re arranged in a herringbone pattern inside the plane which actually decreases your privacy and places "walls" on each side of your seat which, though low, seemed confining to me. And, across from me was a coulple that stayed up all night yapping which kept me awake part of the time.
 
So I didn’t really enjoy the flight much. The Revivals Lounge at Heathrow, with its private bathroom, shower, and breakfast buffet was very appreciated, however. Then I caught a Baby BMI flight for Venice (which included a 35 minute delay due to "European air traffic congestion") and, after an inflight nap or two, was soon in Italy. The Marco Polo Airport is actually on the mainland so I had to take a bus to the Piazzale Roma terminal on the island of Venice. From there I boarded a vaporetto (water bus), lugging my suitcase aboard the boat, and eventually made it to San Marco Plaza. Pulling your wheeled suitcase over pavers and cobble stones is a treat and you have to carry it over bridges, which typically have steps – so packing light is recommended. At last, I gratefully made it to Hotel Campiello, located on the Calle di Vin (street of wine – imagine that), and its welcome air conditioning, at about 5 PM.
 
European hotel rooms are somewhat different than American rooms. The toilet, for example features two different flush buttons, each dispensing a different amount of water. The bidet, which I’ve never used, is a regular feature, of course. The shower, which in many European hotels can leave a lot to be desired, is excellent here at the Hotel Campiello. Naturally, the whole bathroom and bedroom are small by our standards but that’s okay with me. I have a nice window out onto the street and the room is clean.
 
My initial foray into San Marco Plaza started with a dinner of pizza and wine on a little backstreet in a tiny restaurant. Both were excellent and the house red wine, without any sulfites, was tasty. Doesn’t sound like a very adventurous menu, does it? Well, when I travel my eating schedule gets thrown off and sometimes you just need to get some food into you, which was the case last night. As for San Marco itself, my initial reactions: beautiful architecture, tons of tourists, almost as many *&$/!# pigeons, wonderful open air seating at 7 restaurants, each with a 3-4 piece band playing, and good gelato.
 
In the evening, the women all dress up very nicely for dinner and their boyfriends/husbands toss on a clean shirt over their jeans and tennis shoes. I concur with my friends who’ve been here and reported that the women are beautiful and very fashion-conscious.
 
It is interesting to be in a city with no cars or other motorized vehicles. Not even bicycles. Walking everywhere is fun, the streets and plazas are well-marked and nowhere is too far to go. I’m off now to find La Fenice, the famous opera house, and perhaps get a backstage tour. So, more notes and perhaps some pictures tomorrow.
 

Ready for Italy

Lee Hausman
Italy! Who can resist the call of a country that was the home of the mighty Roman Empire, overflows with great food and wine, and was the cradle of so much great art, literature, and music? Certainly not me, so tonight I’ll be flying out on Virgin Air (my favorite airline) to London then on to fabulous Venice.
 
My itinerary features Venice, Florence, and Rome, with stops in Paris and London on the way home. I hope to see a lot of great art, will be attending some operas, and seek to understand the Italian experience. As usual, I’ve depended on the reliable Rick Steves guidebooks and have made extensive use of the Internet to make arrangements. I’ll be traveling solo this time and will miss the company of my beautiful daughters, Sarah and Lindsay, who frequently travel with me (sorry girls, definitely next time).
 
So, if you are so inclined, you can be my vicarious traveling companion right here. I’ll be relying on Internet cafes and so my postings my not be quite as regular as they have been for domestic trips. In addition, it may be harder to post pictures so bear with me. I may just include links to pictures that others have taken so that you can at least see what I’ve seen.
 
Ciao for now, baby!
 
 

Home Sweet Home

Lee Hausman
My final ride of this trip was longer than the rest but fairly uneventful. From Wilmington I took I-40 up to I-95 and soon found myself back in The Old Dominion. The weather was cool but sunny and traffic, most of the way, was light. Petersburg, Richmond, Fredericksburg – these familiar cities and their roads welcomed me to the end of my grand motorcycle trip. When I arrived at home, I found my little house intact and my plants in good shape (thank you, Robert) and I look forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.
 
I wasn’t sure when I planned this trip how it would go. I’m a lot older now than I was when I last made such a long ride and wasn’t sure if some unforseen back or knee problem would crop up after two hours on the bike. Luckily, all went well and I’m very happy to have made the trip, not only for the sights and old friends visited but also for the sheer experience of the ride.
 
A number of you have been very kind in your comments about my travelogue and I thank you for taking the time to join me here. I’m currently shifting gears, doing laundry, and repacking in preparation to leave for Europe in a few days. My travels will take me, for the first time, to Venice, Florence, and Rome and back to old favorites Paris and London. No, no motorcycles will be used in these travels, just planes, trains, and buses. I’ll be creating a separate commentary here for that trip and would be delighted if you want, once again, to travel with me vicariously.
 
 

In Wilmington

Lee Hausman

I had an excellent and dry ride up to Wilmington, NC today, falling in with two riders from Virginia and two from New Hampshire (!) on the way. I spent the day with my friends Rob and Michele Zapple seeing their nice city. Rob is a builder of custom homes and Michele owns/operates/teaches at her gymnastics gym and I got to see their work today and was very impressed. Rob’s houses are really very well-built works of art; not in the sense that they’re huge or extravagant, just well-made with all the right touches.

In the evening, we went out to dinner with their two son Holden and Jack; their daughter Zoey could not join us (see photo). I remember long ago when Rob and Michele were in their 20s and it’s great to see them still together and with a house-full of nearly-grown, great-looking kids.

Tomorrow: Heading for home. 

Bike Week Fun

Lee Hausman

Rain during Bike Week is an undesirable but unavoidable occurrence if the Weather Gods so decree and today we’re having “scattered thunderstorms”. The Weather Service defines this as rainfall over 30-50% of the forecast area. Bikers define it as a pain in the butt: there’s a heavy overcast and it could rain at any time. But as Vonnegut said, “So it goes”. I have the bike parked and covered and I’m holed up at the Holiday Inn Express. 

I don’t mind having a day at the hotel really. I need to catch up on my Italian lessons and finish listening to the audio book “City of Falling Angels” (John Berendt’s story of the burning and rebuilding of La Fenice, the opera house in Venice) in preparation for my Italian trip. I’ll be leaving this Friday night for Venice and will be posting a blog of that trip here on this site, if you’re interested. Given that I’m going to depend on European Internet cafes rather than take a laptop, my postings are likely to be less regular.

 Mindful of today’s forecast, I spent some time yesterday doing Bike Week stuff such as cleaning the bike up (it got very dirty during the rain two days ago near Daytona) and visiting the local Harley Davidson dealership. The latter is always a zoo, jammed with bikes parked and cruising and large crowds perusing the wares of vendors who set up their tents in back. I bought a “Spit Happens” bib for Mark & Tina’s 10-month old baby Alice, complete with Harley logo – don’t blame me, Mark sat her down on my bike yesterday and she reached for the handle bars and smiled.

 I also visited the Broken Spoke and the Rat Hole, both well-known biker watering holes. They each had daytime activities such as jello-wrestling, wet tee-shirt contests, burn out contests, and “pig scambles” (I have no idea what this is but I doubt PETA would approve) – weird entertainment indeed. I wonder what these places are like at midnight (well past my bedtime).

 The vendor fairs, of which there are several that cover acres, feature every motorcycle part and doodad you can think of. Clothes, boots, jewelry, hats, tuning services, cleaning services, tattoos, piercing, sunglasses were all on display, just to name a few. My favorites are the helmet stickers. These are the bumper stickers of the motorcycle world, are about 1” x 4”, and are hilarious. They’re often profane, vulgar, and wickedly funny. Samples include “Your Face or Mine”, “Zero to Bitch in 2.5 seconds”, and “You Were Good but Your Mom Was Better”. I really can’t see myself riding around with any of these (or those with the work F**K prominently featured) on my helmet but they are funny to read here.

 I wrapped up by visiting the Dead Dog Saloon, my favorite spot, which is down in Murrell’s Inlet and overlooks the water. They also have great tee-shirts, which brings up an interesting dilemma. If you’re not careful, you can find yourself buying more tee-shirts than you have packing space for. I’ve limited myself to four on this entire trip (see photos).

 I finished yesterday off sharing dinner at the Pawleys Island Tavern with all of my NYC UVA theatre friends and we had a great time. Pat and Peter Web have got to be two of the funniest people on earth. Baby Alice kept us entertained when the excellent band was not playing (that child is really great in public) and the South Carolina low country menu did not disappoint.

 Tomorrow morning I’ll be packing up and making a short (1 hour) ride up the coast to Rob Zapple’s house in Wilmington, NC. Rob is another UVA theatre classmate and he and his wife Michele were my neighbors out in L.A. many years ago. Rob is a great ambassador for Wilmington and I’m looking forward to seeing the city. Hopefully, I can stay dry for that one hour ride!

At Beautiful Pawleys Island

Lee Hausman
Odd as it may seem, high speed Internet access is just not as universal nor as reliable at hotels as it should be in these days of widespread connectivity. I didn’t post anything yesterday because I couldn’t get a decent connection. But I can report today that I had a lovely ride yesterday, under beautiful blue skies, from Jacksonville, FL to Pawleys Island, SC (the back roads were not that interesting after all but did save time).
 
Upon arrival, I made my traditional stop at Howard’s (The Pawleys Island Tavern) for my first G&T of the season and then had dinner last night with Paul Ames, Poppy Burns, Pat & Peter Webb, and Mark & Tina Hattan and baby Alice at Hog Heaven, BBQ restaurant supreme. Very pleasant indeed!
 
Bikers are pouring into Myrtle Beach as I speak and I plan to spend some time today at Bike Week activities as tomorrow there may be afternoon thunderstorms. With luck I’ll post something with pictures tonight so stay tuned.

Of Rain and Rain Gear

Lee Hausman

Ensuring that my rain gear was fit and ready was a major priority for me before this trip and today I got to reap the rewards of my preparations. I made it from Fort Lauderdale to just south of Daytona before the clouds got really ominous looking. I stopped at a handy rest area and donned my rain gear. I was very glad that I’d tried it all on at home and that I was able to put it on today smoothly and before any rain appeared. No one likes to wear rain gear so it’s always a gamble to see how long you can go without putting it on yet not get wet (you can get soaked to the bone on a moving bike in the rain in about 30 seconds). My gamble today paid off as a short 3 miles after putting on the duds the downpour began and continued for about an hour. I stayed completely dry but was reacquainted with the difficulties in seeing the road in the rain; one has to look through a windshield, a helmet face shield and, in my case, glasses. All of which got wet in some form or another; none of which had a windshield wiper. That all combines to require absolute focus and attention when driving and that is mighty tiring.  

Did I mention the smoke detour? Oh, yes, about 5 miles after the downpour began the state police closed I-95 down due to smoke from brush fires. Traffic was detoured east then north on local roads then back to I-95 (about an hour of creeping along, in the rain, sandwiched among semi’s, on slippery roads – a real treat). At least at highway speeds you can count of the air envelope around you to keep some water off you – at a traffic light it’s like sitting on your bike in the shower. Luckily, my rain gear did the job and even lived up to its promise to let air pass into the garments but not water, so no sweating to death in the rain suit.  

After I got back on I-95 the rain began to taper off; another hour and the weather cleared completely and I was able to put the rain gear away and finish my ride to Jacksonville in comfort. I did get lucky in that I seem to have skirted the thunderstorms that were angling NW to SE across central Florida today, some of them pretty severe. The storm front even cleared out the really warm temps. Oddly enough, two hours after I checked into the hotel here and covered the bike, it started to rain again. Tomorrow, though, we are promised clear skies and cool temps (70s).  

Tomorrow I’ll be riding to Pawleys Island, just south of Myrtle Beach, and taking a route off the Interstate on smaller roads through Manning, Greeleyville, and Andrews, South Carolina. This more rural route will shave 1.5 hours off my drive time and let me take in some of the scenery one usually doesn’t see from I-95. I may wind up stuck behind a hay combine or tractor for a few miles but that might be fun, too. Also, because Myrtle Beach Bike Week starts tomorrow, I may find myself in the company of other riders and it’s almost always fun to ride with a group.  

Tomorrow: Howard’s (as the Pawleys Island Tavern is known to the locals) and my friends from Manhattan.