Italian eataway: Come for the pope, stay for the food

American Press

2 days ago

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Lunch in Italy means everything under the sea. (Beverly Dower / Special to the American Press)
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The view from high atop Sorrento, Itay, on the day the world got a new pope. (Scooter Hobbs / American Press)
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Beverly samples the wares from a 'wine window,' one of Italy's great cultural contributions. (Scooter Hobbs / American Press)
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One of the Cardinals heads to the Conclave. (Scooter Hobbs / American Press)
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The country's current No. 1 spectator sport is watching the absurdly mangled traffic on tiny roadways. (Scooter Hobbs / American Press)
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You can fiddle with Leonardo Da Vinci's play-toys. (Beverly Dower / Special to the American Press)
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Beverly Dower and Scooter Hobbs enjoy a nearly two-week trip to Italy. (Special to the American Press)
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A sports writer wonders where the press box is. (Beverly Dower / Special to the American Press)
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Sorrento lights up at night. (Scooter Hobbs / American Press)
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The view of the Ancient Roman Forum at night. (Beverly Dower / Special to the American Press)
SORRENTO, Italy — So there we were, Beverly and I, minding our own business at a serene clifftop outdoor cafe, gazing down several hundred feet at a postcard-like vista of a rocky harbor on the Mediterranean.
We're talking birds chirping here, soothing violin music wafting about, all the while we're wondering what would happen if Mount Vesuvius out there across that crystal blue water might misbehave again for the first time in 1,946 years.
I kept a side eye on it. But despite the inherent volcanic danger, you might call it a peaceful, idyllic scene — with low humidity no less.
I had just ordered another Peroni. I don't normally cotton to foreign beers, but a Peroni had hit the spot on our first day in Italy and it was Un altro di questi per favore for the duration.
Beverly was still experimenting with spritzers, having taken a break from the handy sidewalk 'wine windows,' where the tiny little door can open at any time and vino magically appears. The wine window may have been Leonardo Da Vinci's greatest invention. Or maybe it was some other genius. I forget. Point is, all was well. The only thing missing was the Onassis yacht to pull in.
And then, all of a sudden, every church bell in Sorrento was ringing. The laid-back wait staff was bustling about. There was a buzz in the crowd.
Beverly had gotten an urgent text from stateside just minutes before.
Dumb me was looking around like, 'What? … Who? … What'd I miss? … Where? Were we finally going to get see one of those famous pickpocket artists we'd been warned about? Can I still get another Peroni?'
Everybody else seemed to understand.
'New Pope!' a waiter explained loudly, just as Beverly was reading the same news via transatlantic text.
'White smoke!' another screamed.
And our waiter — did I mention they don't accept tips? — dropped by to inform us, with a big Italian smile, 'It's an American pope!'
American, huh?
Hmmm. I assumed that, very shortly, some envoy from the Vatican would be seeking me out, requesting a meet-and-greet with the new Holiness. Pope Leo, they said his name was.
After all, just a week earlier, Beverly and I had been at the Vatican itself. Our tour of the Sistine Chapel was canceled because they were setting it up for the Conclave to do the Papal electing.
But we'd stood out there in St. Peter's Square amidst the multitudes, watching the workers up on a roof attaching the very smokestack that would later announce the news. It turns out the smokestack is only carted out for special occasions.
We'd even caught a glimpse of a genuine Cardinal crossing the street, maybe pondering his vote, but also carrying a shopping bag. Probably on expense account.
And while there, in clear earshot of several chaps who looked to be Vatican security, I'd let it be known in a stage-whisper that I was personal friends with Ray Crochet — who as I'm sure the Vatican was aware — is a regular Sunday morning usher at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
'It's in Lake Charles,' I said a little louder. 'You know, America!'
But I guess the new pontiff's people and my people couldn't get together — anyway, our schedules didn't cooperate — and we couldn't make it happen.
It was about the only downer of the whole trip, almost two weeks worth of Italy — Rome, Florence and Sorrento, connected by the cushion-smooth wonder of high-speed trains (except for that Naples-to-Sorrento leg on a slow, rickety train older than the aqueducts, held together mostly by graffiti).
Anyhow, some random thoughts about going from one boot to visit the Italian version:
Italy was once the world's leader in producing history, most of it now ancient, much of it showcased with numerous 'ruins' scattered about.
There's the impressive Colosseum, of course, but, sadly, there was no game the day we visited, nor any gladiator killings.
Ditto for Circus Maximus, an 800-yard-long oval once used for chariots and whatnot, an especially popular ancient gathering spot on Ben Hur bobble-head night.
There are many others, like the remaining debris where Augustus Caesar met his doom.
What isn't reduced to total ruin in Italy is now deemed as 'art,' much of it marble, almost all of that marble sculpted down to bare nakedness. It was everywhere you turned.
I was wondering if the Roman Empire, for all its cultural advances, had never gotten around to clothing.
Naked marble … everywhere.
And fountains. Woo, boy, those Italians love them some fountains. The Trevi Fountain in Rome is the show pony, and if you're persistent enough and squeeze and scrunch through enough fellow tourists, you can get a good view of the backs of more tourists' heads.
Yet most of the fountains in one of the world's most highfalutin (chic) fashion centers doesn't waste much marble on clothing there, either.
The exception would be the Vatican Museum, a multi-story monstrosity where we got separated from our group and tour guide and were hopelessly lost for … we may still be wandering aimlessly through that never-ending maze.
At the Vatican Museum, however, the otherwise naked marble is discreet enough to wear 'fig leaves' which, as my keen eye for art detected, seemed to be ad-on fig leaves, probably sometime in the last 15 centuries.
Of course, the world's most famous example of naked marble is farther north, in Florence, where, as I understand it, art was invented on March the … I forget the exact date — something to do with some vague 'Ides' — but it was a long, long time ago.
The must-see chunk de resistance in Florence is, of course, the biblically naked marble of David, one of Michelangelo's masterpieces. At least, I think they said it was Michelangelo.
Rule of thumb for Italy: Everything there that wasn't invented by Leonardo Da Vinci, was either painted or sculpted by Michelangelo. The Artist's Artist.
Your basic five-tool artist. He may also have directed some spaghetti westerns, perhaps 'La Dolce Vita,' to pick up extra cash (Euros).
Michelangelo, though, is probably more for the 'artsy' crowd.
Beverly couldn't get enough of Italy's never-ending array of art options. I tagged along — there's no escaping it — but call me a Leonardo Da Vinci guy. Mainly, you don't have to decipher the hidden meanings in every paint stroke.
Fortunately, Leonardo has his own museum (and gift shop) in Florence. Here you'll find many magnificent examples of what I would call his 'gadgets,' all manner of widgets and pulleys and gears and levers, room after room of crazy, thingamajig contraptions that you'll wish you had thought of.
What do you learn? Da Vinci dabbled in art — ever hear of the Mona Lisa? But I'd say that, for all his genius, at heart Da Vinci was just a guy's guy, curious and inventive, always thinking outside the box, but in the end prone to uttering things like 'Hold my beer and watch this!'
Some of his best handiwork is in his museum. Best of all, you can play with all the interactive gizmos.
But back to Michelangelo. And David.
There are numerous David knock-offs around Florence, but the real deal, the nakedest of all the naked marble, is in the Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze.
No need to translate. It's a museum, which also houses the world's first upright piano as part of the winding walk-through to the main attraction.
There are signs warning the chaperones of school groups about just how naked they are about to confront David.
Suffice it to say that David is clad only by that trusty slingshot draped across his left shoulder. That's not the thing, though.
'Little' David, the world's first great underdog, is 17 feet tall, which explains why Michelangelo sculpted no accompanying Goliath to complete the scene of his signature moment.
There are plenty of other exciting and educational things to do and see in Italy, of course, even in the absence of gladiators doing battle with circus animals.
The country's current No. 1 spectator sport is watching the absurdly mangled traffic.
Most of the Italian cars are tiny upright boxes that look like something you'd cuss at while not reading the instructions trying to assemble it on Christmas Eve for your 5-year-old.
These wheeled trinkets fight for limited street space with whole herds of bicycles, veritable platoons of motor scooters that would be right at home carting Shriners down a Fourth of July parade.
They're all sideswiping and brake-slamming but — no road rage here — all the while just laughing at each other and playfully taunting. At least it seemed like that taxi driver of ours was friends with the guy he was playing chicken with.
Meanwhile, pedestrians just wander haphazardly through this calm chaos, the whole oblivious ensemble — everything but chariots, it seems — weaving this way and that, teasing you with potential carnage but never quite delivering the pile-up.
Keep in mind, some of these 'streets' are, by my guesstimate, no more than 19 inches wide, yet at one point we were on a double-decker tour bus circling Rome, with no casualties.
Trust me, just watching this montage can provide hours upon hours of wholesome, family fun, preferably from the comfort of a sidewalk café.
Did somebody say 'sidewalk café?' Count me in.
Pro tip: Before visiting, you really need to fast for at least two weeks — and save room for dessert. You're going to eat. Eat good.
When you exit the main Rome train station, for instance, the very first thing you see is … a McDonald's. Ignore it, resist the urge, it's probably a practical joke. Don't look like an obvious tourist. You are about to eat well and often, probably too often and too much.
With the sculpting business pretty well played out, the Italian economy that is not tour-guiding or pick-pocketing is centered around every block in every city housing: a handful of sidewalk cafes, one high-end shoe store, a low-end refrigerator magnet store, an obligatory fountain or two and three or four nooks peddling 'gelato,' which is an Italian word loosely translated to our tongue as 'Blue Bell.'
My guess is that half the Italian population either owns or works at a food place — more like cuisine, actually — and the other half spends all day sipping and nibbling in sidewalk cafes. I could get used to that latter life.
There's a lot more to it than spaghetti and meatballs. Most of it I couldn't pronounce and still can't spell, so you'll have to use your imagination.
I do know that I more than doubled my previous lifetime intake of octopus, and am convinced I'm a better person for the adventure. Beverly and I shared a steak bigger than the passing cars.
Eat anywhere you like and try new stuff you've never heard of. The cafes are all excellent — if they're not, evidently they don't last long.
But you absolutely can't leave Italy without going to Mercato Centrale in Florence. It's hard to miss — roughly the size of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. — but not that easy to find — little to no signage that we saw.
Beverly and I actually wandered in out of curiosity, unaware as to what it was. What it was, was a food explosion, four or five stories of culinary sensory overload, all these competing aromas wafting at you around every turn, from every direction.
Every fish, fowl and foi gras known to gluttony was there, not to mention whole sides of beef, pork and other unidentified livestock, some of it still on the hoof, at least one still attached to a snout.
It's part meat stands, just as many fish and veggie markets, most of which will grill up lunch for you on the spot.
I can't bring myself to call it a food court, though, unless a food court can get five stars.
It is intoxicating.
So, in conclusion: If you're going to get lost in Italy, this Mercado Centrale would be the place to do it. Maybe Pope Leo will drop by.