Tag: architecture

ravenna: a forgotten roman capital

On the evening of my arrival in Ravenna, I embarked upon my typical aimless journey of a new city. I had already purchased my pass to all of the city’s main UNESCO heritage churches and basilicas, studied the city’s map, and walked around town getting my bearings. I came upon the Basilica di San Vitale, which was on the next day’s agenda. The sky overhead was clear as the sun was setting, but white storm clouds billowed in the sky behind the 6^th century church, concealing the last of the sun before it set.

Basilica di San Vitale

Fast forward to the next morning, and I am speed-walking back to San Vitale from the covered market where I had stopped for a cappuccino and shelter, my hair sopping with water. My jeans are drenched through to the skin and the water has followed the gradient of my socks down into my boots, so I am quite literally wet from head to toe.

Finally, I reach the arched gateway to the basilica, where I have to pull out my phone in the pouring rain to show the staff my e-ticket, and then I dart as fast as I can to the entrance to the basilica. Ah, shelter! But even here, parts of the mosaiced floor are inch-deep in rain.

waterlogged floors in the Basilica di San Vitale

Such was my one full day in Ravenna: miserably wet. But you know? Even so, I really enjoyed the city.

I didn’t know much about Ravenna besides its name before I started planning this trip. But just a little bit of research into its fascinating history convinced me that it was a must-visit. During the late, troubled days of the Western Roman Empire, it briefly became the west’s capital in the early 5^th century CE. When the Eastern Roman Empire took Italy back from the Visigoths in the late 5^th-6^th centuries, Emperor Justinian built Ravenna into a city glittering with mosaics in churches that remain remarkably well-preserved 15 centuries later.

These churches stand as monuments to a slice of time barely remembered in history books, when Rome itself had fallen but the Western Empire held on, imbibing influence from the Eastern Empire before west and east were fully sundered. The mosaics themselves are very eastern, and far better preserved than, say, those in the Hagia Sofia (for which the Basilica di San Vitale was an early prototype, according to my Bradt Guide to Emilia-Romagna). Truly, they are breathtaking works of early Christian art that display remarkable craftsmanship for their era, with human expressions far more lifelike than anything from the Middle Ages. Still, take the mosaics away, and the columns of classical Rome stand tall in places like the Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo.

In all, there are five UNESCO World Heritage sites in Ravenna. The Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo was just steps from my hotel. Unlike some of the other sites, this one required a pass but not a scheduled entry time. It was my first stop on the day of my arrival, before the rain started.

Jesus enthroned

three wise men

Mary enthroned

Saint Cecilia (my confirmation saint)

The next morning, I had an early appointment to visit the Battistero Neoniano, named for the 5^th-century bishop (Neon) who commissioned its mosaics. This one required that you book a specific timeslot, so I braved the rain and arrived about 10 minutes early, praying they would let me in a bit early. (They did.)

dome of the Battistero Neoniano

I’ve already recounted my waterlogged journey from there to the Basilica di San Vitale, where I hunkered down for as long as I could manage. Fortunately, there was plenty of beauty to photograph there.

The namesake of the Mausoleo di Galla Placidia was the Constantinople-born daughter of the last Roman Emperor of a united and peaceful Rome. Later, in Ravenna, she ruled as regent for her son, and lived a colorful life during turbulent times for Rome. The mausoleum was built for her, but does not actually house her remains.

My appointment to see the mausoleum, whose quaint fauna-filled mosaics were my favorites, was at noon. Once again, I braved the pouring rain for a short jaunt across a courtyard a bit before my timeslot in the hopes I’d be allowed in, rather than being forced to stand in the rain. Again, the gambit paid off.

I did not make it to the fifth site, the Cappella di Sant’Andrea, because its limited opening hours did not align with my schedule.

I spent the rest of the day alternately eating and avoiding the rain. After the Mausoleo, I lost time at the Osteria del Tempo Perso, ate a lovely risotto and warmed up with a Sangiovese, before venturing back out into the rain in search of dry clothes, a warm bed, and a nap. Later, the rain finally gave up, and I emerged again for dinner and wine at the charming enoteca, Ca’ de Ven. (I mean really, where but in Italy can you find a bar with ceilings like this?)

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It’s a rare city that can manage to charm me despite appallingly bad weather, but Ravenna did. The sense of being in a time capsule from a forgotten era that overwhelmed me when gazing at 6^th century mosaics contrasted pleasantly with the clean, modern, small city that buzzed outside the church walls. History aside, it seemed like a nice place to live, which not every tourist city can claim.

2024-12-08
bologna: a damp journey through a foodie paradise

Our group of mostly American tourists followed Caterina of Secret Food Tours through the winding streets of old Bologna like little ducklings. We stopped in one shop and tasted little pastries, then in another shop we picked up a parcel, then tasted slices of almond-flavored cakes called torta di rizo, then acquired another parcel, then squeezed into the cellar of a wine shop, where we tasted 8-, 12- and 25-year aged balsamic vinegar. This was decidedly not the commodity we buy in grocery stores in the US, but something thicker, sweeter, and less acidic—a perfect blend of the tartness of vinegar and the sweetness of syrup.

Caterina explains the making of balsamic vinegar

Eventually we reached the Osteria del Sole, located in the Quadrilatero and distinguishable only by a faint sun painted on the door. (Side note: Stanley Tucci visited the same place in the Bologna episode of Searching for Italy.)

the sign of the Osteria del Sole

Traditionally, we learned, osterias only served wine and other spirits—food was BYO—and Osteria del Sole was a rare one that still abided by this ancient rule. So here, the mysterious parcels we had picked up earlier came out.

They turned out to be two platters of charcuterie—or salumi, in Bolognese parlance—featuring some of the region of Emilia’s best pork-based delicacies. Slices of salami gentile, ciccioli (pork belly), culatello (culo being “butt”), salami rosso, and of course, Bologna’s famous mortadella and prosciutto di Parma.

a platter of salumi di Bologna

While a long-time lover of prosciutto and cured meats in general, I had never tried mortadella before. We Americans had long ago bastardized the name of this cold cut from Bologna into “baloney”, so I looked at this item somewhat askance. But like the balsamic vinegar, mortadella had little to do with what we find in American grocery stores. This pale meat with flecks of white (fat) and black (peppercorns) was as buttery soft as the best prosciutto. Rounding out the platter were some hunks of parmesan (originating in neighboring Parma) and slabs of focaccia di Bologna.

As we noshed on the platter, the servers from the osteria brought us bottles of wine from the region. A Pignoletto, which my Bradt guide to Emilia-Romagna described as “the new prosecco”. A Lambrusco—again a departure from the varietal found in American grocery stores. Not at all sweet, but dry and fizzy, a combination of flavor and texture I’d never encountered before. And of course, a Sangiovese, a lighter wine made of the same grape I would later consume by the liter in Tuscany in the form of Chianti.

And all of this wasn’t even lunch, it was just the appetizer.

When I was planning my trip to Italy, two things had drawn me to Bologna. First and foremost was the food, for which Emilia-Romagna is justly famous as the best in Italy, even in a country known for its cuisine.

In this, Bologna did not disappoint. The Secret Foods walking tour was easily the highlight of my time in Bologna. After the osteria, we went to the Trattoria del Rosso for tortellini in brodo (tortellini being one of Bologna’s signature foods, in this case served in a capon broth) and tagliatelle al ragù (the original form of spaghetti Bolognese, properly served over much broader tagliatelle pasta topped with a ragù made of minced veal, pork, prosciutto, onions, carrots, celery, and only the tiniest bit of tomato). While in the city, I sampled the ragù and tortellini more than once, along with the lasagna, made in authentic Bolognese fashion, with spinach in the noodles and bechamel rather than ricotta.

the bounty of Bologna

the many pastas of Bologna

authentic tortellini bolognese

The second thing that drew me to Bologna was the history. When I first started planning the trip, what I knew about Bologna was that it was home to the first university in the world, founded in 1088 (just 22 years after the Normans arrived in Britain), and that it had been a medieval cultural capital that drew scholars from all over the world long before the rise of such Renaissance families as the Medicis and the Borgias.

Given that, I was expecting to be more impressed by the architecture of the city, but perhaps I did not fully contemplate how much architecture changed from the Middle Ages to the grandeur of Renaissance Italy to which I was accustomed. Most of the architecture in Bologna is a brownish-red brick, which was the building material that was locally available in the city’s heyday. The city boasts some cute churches for sure, like the Basilica Santo Stefano:

the Basilica di Santo Stefano

But the city’s main cathedral on the Piazza Maggiore, the Basilico di Santo Petronio, is a bit of a gargantuan eyesore. Though construction began in 1390, the façade was never completed, leading to the sense that the basilica started getting dressed in the morning and forgot to put on its shirt.

Basilica di San Petronio

The two elements of Bolognese architecture that are admittedly kind of cool are its porticoes and its towers. All through the city, sidewalks are covered in arched porticoes, a feature of the city’s architecture since the 12^th century. Some of them are simple, practical coverings, others stately, others whimsical, others works of art. All of them are quite practical, for when it rains in Bologna (as it did much of the time I was there) you can walk around the much of the city under cover, only having to emerge into the rain to cross the street. All in all, there are 62 km worth of porticoes in the city, and they lend the city’s architecture a unique character.

a more stately portico

a more whimsical portico

a more artistic portico

The towers, I suspect, were more impressive in memory than in current fact. Centuries before New York City started sprouting skyscrapers, the great families of Bologna (and elsewhere in Italy) built massive brick towers to the skies, simultaneously for purposes of status and defense. Food tour guide Caterina showed us a rendering of what the city had looked like over a century ago (something like this), before many of the towers crumbled or were torn down due to structural failings, and presumably bombing during World War II. Ruins of them can be seen tucked in corners all around the city, but the Due Torre (Two Towers), are the most prominent remaining.

Torre degli Asinelli

Until recently, you could climb the larger Torre degli Asinelli, but now the smaller Torre della Garisenda is leaning so heavily towards its big brother that the larger tower has been closed due to safety concerns.

Overall, I found Bologna and the Emilia region worth visiting for the cuisine alone. A true foodie could go nuts in this region, visiting wine, cheese, and salumi shops and production facilities, along with restaurants from the hole-in-the-wall to the Michelin-starred. But for me, the region lacked something of the charm that I associate with Italy. But perhaps my impression was soured on account of the rain, which prevented me from spending as much time as I’d have liked enjoying my all-time favorite Italian activity of sitting in an outdoor café, drinking wine, and people watching.

rainy Bologna

2024-11-17
5 things to do in new orleans other than eating and drinking

The city of New Orleans conjures for most people images of drunken debauchery. Drinking monstrously large hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s. Waltzing down Bourbon Street with open beers in hand. Women flashing their boobs in exchange for Mardi Gras beads. Of course, there’s also the gluttony—oysters, fried fish, shrimp, jambalaya, gumbo, étouffée, beignets, po-boys. The list of New Orleans decadences is seemingly endless.

Don’t get me wrong—I support all of those things. But for my third trip to New Orleans last weekend, I decided it was time to branch out a little bit and explore the city’s other offerings. The beautiful thing about New Orleans? You don’t actually have to choose: most of this can be done in conjunction with the eating and drinking. You can be culturally enriched and debauched at the same time.

1. Cemeteries

New Orleans is famous for its aboveground cemeteries, necessitated by the high water-table in the flood- and hurricane-prone city. As one tour guide put it, “you don’t want to see Grandma floating down the street.” Gross.

Over time, the practical necessity of aboveground burial evolved into a cultural and architectural tradition, reflecting the changing cultural influences on the city as it passed from French to Spanish to French to American hands. Wandering through the old tombs, you can find engravings in all three tongues, with dates ranging back to the 18^th century. Some tombs are kept lively with (often fake) flower arrangements. Many stand proud and stately their white marble tarnished with black mold. Others grow decrepit with age.

St Louis Cemetery No 3

If you’re up for a moody afternoon (we went on a cloudy day), you have a few options. St Louis Cemetery No 1 is the oldest (established 1789) and easiest to reach from the French Quarter. It also hosts the tomb of Marie Laveau. But, the guard helpfully informed us, it’s also the only one to charge an entrance fee. Instead we followed his recommendation and took a Lyft up to St Louis Cemetery No 3, established in 1854. For a $10, 10 min Lyft ride, we got free entry to a much larger (if less tightly packed) cemetery. (No 2 is apparently closed due to “vandalism and other concerns,” according to the Catholic church).

2. Architecture

If you’re sober enough to appreciate it, New Orleans is full of architectural delights. Sure there are some dramatic constructions like St Louis Cathedral, but for me the beauty of New Orleans lies in the smallest of architectural detail. Every house in the French Quarter seems to boast some special flare—detailed metalwork on the balcony, cheerful plantation shutters, daintily carved corbels.

grandiose balconies on Royal Street

tucked away on Dauphine Street

a more modest house down Royal Street with baby blue plantation shutters

decorative corbels on Royal Street

This was the first trip that I ventured outside the French Quarter. After taking a Lyft to St Louis Cemetery No 3, we walked back to the Quarter along Esplanade Ave and through Tremé, admiring the old Victorian mansions and Caribbean bungalows that lived side-by-side.

trees lining Esplanade Ave

For a future visit: the Garden District.

3. Shops and Galleries

Every time I go to the French Quarter I feel a little lost. In part, because of alcohol. In part, because I always seem to stay in a different part of the quarter and start off the trip with my bearings at a 90 degree angle. But I always seem to find my bearings, not by Bourbon Street, but by Royal Street, one block over. Royal Street is a little classier; here Bourbon’s bars are replaced with shops and galleries, some far beyond my price range, but delightful to browse.

Each time I revisit shops and galleries from previous trips, and stumble upon new ones. In my first trip in 2012, I bought a black metal Mardi Gras mask with red detailing. I found that shop again on this trip, but not on the last one. On my second trip in 2022, I didn’t buy anything of note, but fell in love with multiple galleries and artists whose work cost thousands. This time I fell in love with a jewelry store called Fleur d’Orleans, whose proprietor makes jewelry inspired by New Orleans architecture. (I bought a pair of earrings inspired by her neighbor’s window.) I also bought a mask carved out of hibiscus wood. This shop seems absent from Google, but that’s all part of the mysterious fun of shopping in New Orleans.

4. Swamp Tours

For something totally different, this time I ventured outside of the French Quarter entirely. Outside of New Orleans. North of Lake Pontchartrain. Into the swamp. We booked the trip through Cajun Encounters, who helpfully picked us up in a coach (for an additional fee) not far from our hotel, and took us to the Honey Island Swamp. I can’t recommend the company highly enough. Everything ran extremely efficiently, and our coach driver and captain (Bam-Bam and Everett, respectively) were excellent tour guides. (Expect some prison-related humor from the captains.)

One thing I did not consider was that the things I associated with a Louisiana swamp—namely alligators—were cold-blooded reptiles, and therefore not likely to be active on a chilly, cloudy day in late January. Indeed, the alligators and snakes were nowhere to be seen. That made the trip a bit more low-key, but the boat tour among the partially submerged cypress trees hung with Spanish moss made for a scenic if eldritch morning.

honey island swamp

While there were no reptiles in sight, we did see a lot of racoons, including this blond one.

a blonde racoon hiding in the cypress trees

5. Live Music

You don’t actually have to go anywhere special to find live music in New Orleans. Musicians play on the street corners, like this saxophonist outside of Cafe du Monde.

a street saxophonist outside Cafe du Monde

Of course there are plenty of live bands on Bourbon Street, mostly catering to the popular tastes. I’m personally a fan of Famous Door, where cover bands play crowd-pleasing numbers from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. (But beware the jello shots.)

the mural on the side of the Spotted Cat, one of Frenchman Streets many live music venues

This time I ventured a little outside of the French Quarter to the famous Frenchman Street. Here you can find some more authentic New Orleans live music—jazz, blues, funk. We plopped ourselves down at the bar of Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro for hours one evening, chatting with the impossibly young bartender and waitstaff, while listening to the jazz from the concert hall piped in through the speakers. Then we ended up at La Maison, where we listened to a jazz quartet while the bartender in the back made us custom cocktails, then the Blue Nile for some blues, before going back for one last drink at Snug Harbor. Did I mention you don’t really have to pick between the culturally enriching activities and the boozing? Ah New Orleans, laissez le bons temps roulez!

2024-02-04
how to stop worrying and love a layover in san juan

Ok, I wasn’t actually worried—I was thrilled that my May escape-the-office-with-the-girls vacation to Dominica (about which, more to follow in separate posts) would involve a day-long layover in San Juan, Puerto Rico on our return. It was like a bonus trip, and a challenge: experience as much of San Juan as we could in about 24 hours.

A dear friend from Puerto Rico had advised me to find three things in San Juan: mofongos, Medalla beer, and seafood. With such a short stay, my travel companion and I weren’t willing to limit ourselves to only experiencing the food and booze. (Although we did check all the items of her list, and more!)

When we were booking this part of our trip, we did just enough research to decide that we should stay in Old San Juan, rather than the towering tourist villages just west of the airport, where you can find such tourist staples as the Hilton and the Morton’s Steakhouse. This was absolutely the right choice.

Old San Juan (Viejo San Juan or San Juan Antiguo) is everything you want out of a historic city, easily walkable narrow streets with something to see on every inch of every street on the little peninsula the old town occupies. Everything was brightly colored, from the paint on the multihued townhomes, to the turquoise waters of the Atlantic on the north side and the Caribbean on the south side, to the fuchsia bougainvillea that spilled over terraces, to the tiny little mosaics that marked the street numbers of houses or depicted the patron saints of churches. The old town teemed with restaurants, cafes, and bars, all contained within imposing fortifications that encircle the town and provide excellent vantage points for selfies.

The fortifications are the dominant feature of the little peninsula. On the east side, across from the Puerto Rican Capitol, you’ll find Castillo San Cristobal, while at the western end of the peninsula, you’ll find the Castillo San Felipe del Morro, or “El Morro”. The entire city in between is encircled by stone walls.

We spent just long enough in El Morro to take some selfies on the walls and skim through the history exhibits, which taught us a bit about the purpose of El Morro, Castillo San Cristobal, and all the walls in between. The island had been hotly contested among European colonial powers during the Age of Sail as the gateway to the Caribbean, and had been caught up in many battles. The city’s defenders had built up the walls and castles incrementally from the 16th century onward to fortify the island amid the persistent risk of war.

The trek to and from El Morro, while a short distance on a map (and, in fact), was made unusually punishing by the heat. Even the locals were complaining that it was exceptionally hot for May. By the time we made it back from El Morro to the city proper, we sought out any place with air conditioning and food like two women seeking an oasis in the Sahara.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Tropical Taste, which I found by following my Puerto Rican friend’s advice to seek out mofongos. This place came up in Google searches for both “best restaurants in San Juan” and “mofongos near me”, and if we hadn’t been looking for it, we never would have found it because it was strangely situated at the back of a shop.

Mofongos are a delightful Puerto Rican plantain-based specialty, savory and served with the meat of your choosing. I went with the churrasco, a spicy grilled beef. I had eaten mofongos before (at a dearly departed restaurant in DC called Banana Café), and these were, I must say, just as good as advertised. If you like a savory plantain, you will love mofongos—they are roasted and lightly mashed with garlic and I don’t know what other goodness. We also tried the Medalla at Tropical Taste. It was a nice light lager, similar to other Caribbean beers we’d enjoyed previously on the trip.

After lunch, we meandered some shops and art galleries and stopped by the Paseo de Sombrillas on Calle Fortaleza to snap some quick photos. In another town, this would just be a boring, official street that passes in front of the governor’s mansion. Not in San Juan. Here, the street is graced by a canopy of upside-down umbrellas, colored pink, blue, green, yellow, purple, that sway in the wind like psychedelic boughs. (Trip Advisor informs me the colors change throughout the year.)

From there, we descended down the walls on the south side of the city, and perused the artisan tents on the Paseo de la Princesa. At this point, we were again lured indoors by the prospect of air conditioning—and two-for-one mojitos. But though the two-for-one mojitos sign drew us to the Princesa Cocina Cultura, the cocktail menu looked interesting enough that we opted for some undiscounted specialty cocktails instead.

I went for the bartender’s own rum-based take on an Old Fashioned, which showed me I was dealing with a true mixology expert. So I felt in good hands when I made my next request: I told him that we were only in Puerto Rico for 24 hours and wanted to taste the “best” Puerto Rican rums, however he chose to define that. He chose quite well and introduced us to Ron del Barrilito (my friend’s preference) and Don Q (my preference). He also told us this story about Ron del Barrilito’s the Freedom Barrel, which will only be opened when Puerto Rico gains its independence. Both were so good that we bought bottles of our favorites at duty free the next morning.

After that we headed back to check in to our hotel, a boutique hotel called La Terraza de San Juan on the quiet Calle Sol. Much like the city itself, there was something to see in nearly every square inch of the common areas of La Terraza—delightful murals, frescos, tiles, upholstery. In contrast, our room was fairly spare, but it did have the one feature we most valued—air conditioning! (I truly could not recall if the room I booked had air conditioning before we stepped foot in it, so this was a moment of bliss.)

En route to dinner, we did a mini pub crawl, stopping for bad mojitos at one bar (made with Sprite, really?), before stumbling upon some excellent live music and cervezas at a brew pub called Cervercería del Callejón.

Dinner was at El Asador, which was situated in a lovely old hacienda-style building that felt a bit fancier than the food proved to be. Following up on my friend’s three must-dos in San Juan, I was hoping for a seafood feast. We had ceviche as an appetizer and dulce de leche crêpe for dessert, both of which were excellent. None of the seafood entrees really called to me, so I ended up with a lobster risotto. I’ve had better. On the plus side, we witnessed the real-life start of some joke when two parrots walked into a bar.

Before turning in, we stopped for one more drink at a speakeasy called La Grieta, which served exclusively tequila- and mezcal-based drinks, including a spicy drink whose name I unfortunately do not recall. I am always on the hunt for good spicy drinks, and this one packed delightful amount of heat.

For all intents and purposes, that last drink was the end of our time in San Juan—because some of us are over 40 and no longer up for raging all night like the freshly minted 21-year-olds with whom we shared that final bar.

So that’s 24 hours in San Juan. Verdict: would definitely go back! It would be a fun place to spend a few days for a girl’s weekend, bachelorette party, or as a launch of the more comprehensive exploration of Puerto Rico.

2023-09-16