Chuck Dimond

Standing beside the Parthenon is a factor exponentially too large to comprehend.  Like infinity.  The birthplace of Western Civilization holds more than this singular human can take in with all senses firing.  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle together may have had the last original Western human thought.  It’s too much to incorporate in my conscious human experience.  Perhaps it’s there at some other level.

Time has nearly ground it to physical oblivion.  Much of what stands on the Acropolis is the result of multiple restoration efforts.  That so many care enough to try is a powerful statement of the human condition.

Humbly then you do what you can.  Athens you can see beyond the Acropolis does not show antiquity.  Italy and France show more.  Today’s Athenians are sweetly helpful to the strangers in their land, their food among the best of the trip.  English is spoken as commonly as in Texas.

Dogs wander with not a single leash in sight.  Cars speed on city streets beyond anything on American Interstates.  Mass transit takes us where we need to go, slowly.  Quickly our desire turns to the Islands.

Finding such beauty in the world as exists in Italy exacts a multiple human price.  San Gimignano is one example.  Its price paid in the  leaving.  The call to stay flows viscerally.  Departing the valleys surrounding the shining city on the hill leaves a bitter sweetness.  In San Gimignano time is but one sense that stands still.  The week of rich Tuscan diet to all the human senses includes the inevitable—it ends.  Not before filling the human canvass of memory.

A day trip to Pisa and time to marvel at its famous bell tower.  It leans you know.  It leans a lot.  Much more than the pictures suggest.  Why doesn’t someone issue the quite natural blood curdling scream, “Run everybody, it’s going to fall.”  Last report its still standing.  Living in its shadow the locals must enjoy a certain tenseness.

I would choose the shadows of Montalcino.  Making our way to the treasure of that sky-high city we learned that following directional road signs may be fun but not always wise.  The ones here took us to a narrow gravel road that tightened my already secure grip on the steering wheel.  12 kilometers later I pry my hands open to a most incredible perspective of the walled city.  2 kilometers later we are, counter to expectation, there.  The treasure, of course, is world class Brunello (“the brunette”).  It is a wine that challenges king Barolo.  We waver, momentarily.

Our final winding through the curves that thread the Tuscan countryside take us toward Venezia.  If you do not know intimately Italy’s position in the international space race, you have not driven its Autostrada.  Cruise at 140 kilometers and notice how many rockets pass you by.

Destination Venice—king of the hill of the world’s romantic cities.  Its magic still fills the heart, yet Venice provides a bookend to the poignancy of leaving San Gimignano.  Elizabeth and I became inevitable in 1999 Venice a city that now exhibits a deep wound.  It is over-run with her lovers and the view from ten years ago is tazered by change.  If the world’s best engineers keep Venizia above the sea it’s hard to know how it survives the human flood.

Beauty still startles in the back areas, but the classic spiritual place called San Marcos Square is now shoulder-to-shoulder humanity.  I pass a small group of accomplished musicians there playing, with no show of irony, Send In the Clowns.

The memory rises of that scene on the deck of the sinking Titanic where musicians played into death.  I contemplate my part in this story.

The trip from Rome to San Gimignano seems perilous.  Italian road designers never met a straight line they liked.  Far fewer natives who parla inglese deepens being lost.  But the strain evaporates as you enter the portal in the walls that encompass San Gimignano.

Perched high on a hill, this town of 7,000 gives a true view of Tuscan country.  It is more like standing before a landscape painted by one of art’s great masters than seeing with the naked eye.  The view from our bedroom window is such a painting.  I sit at an outside table overlooking one aspect of the beauty as I write.  Can you hear the strains of the aria I want to sing?

As New Mexico is my “soul state,” Rome is my “soul city.”  One step after another takes you to connections with the culture that significantly shapes life in the Western World.  Standing in the presence of The Pieta, walking within the great spirit that governs Campo De Fiori, knowing the taste of lasagna in Piazza Navona, life expands.  This wild, untamed city has a central gravitational force.

As thousands from around the world share the streets, locals teach with example.  How to enjoy a meal.  How to speak as though singing.  How to express great passion.  How to be carried away by the simple acts of living.

As a non-traditional Christian the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica offer serenity.  Irony abounds in this great city.  Despite Christianity’s troubled history you get the power and beauty of Man’s longing for God.

The heat, the great physical exertion of navigating melt as Rome takes you into its embrace.

It’s a long, winding road from Le Lavandou to Saint-Tropez.  Endless hairpin turns are interrupted, when you dare look, by blue sky, the Mediterranean, and tiled roofs on beautiful homes.  Old Town nestles against the sea with an ancient, tranquil beauty.

And there is food—food of the gods.  Mussels in a cream, white wine, and garlic sauce dissolve in the mouth.  You are forever a part of the sea.  That dish alone is worth the flight to Europe and the drive to Saint-Tropez.

This shimmering place finds its place on the map of the heart.  We long for a longer stay on a future trip.

The stories of French arrogance are legion and disparagement is nearly automatic among Americans.  While I had one awful experience in Budapest at the hands of a man from France, to me the French are almost always delightful. From servers in restaurants to drivers on French roads I’ve encountered patience and class.  I’ve called on their kindness many times and they’ve responded.  That I don’t speak their language and so many of them speak mine deepens the gratitude.

Arriving in Nice at midnight and driving for the first time in Europe was harrowing.  Roads must have been designed with the intent to confuse and endanger.  A night clerk at a hotel we had not booked saved our lives as she directed us to the one we did.

I can now say though that I have driven where they know how.  The French expressways, while expensive, are a marvel.  The passing lane is literally that.  Moving at fairly high speeds—130 kilometers (80 miles an hour)—you flow.  There is almost always a lane to pass.  Drivers, whether fast or slow, simply do not camp in the high speed lane.  Similar principles cause traffic to flow in town.  Aggressive movement but with the absence of road rage.

In Avignon Monday the cyber café came to a standstill as the manager and one of her English-speaking customers studied and learned correct directions to our hotel.   Their caring set the tone for a sweet overnight visit to Avignon and its Palais des Papes.

Tuesday morning included a drive-by through Chateaux-du-Pape.  There was a minor epiphany:  this is where we will stay in the future.  The village that carries the name of the district is beautiful.  Beauty and great wine—what more could one ask from life.  Time on the water perhaps.

For us, Le Lavandou delivers.  Home for the next two days it is rest and restoration on the coast of France in preparation for Italy.

We pass our time in a room with a view of the Mediterranean.  Cross a narrow street and we’re at a most beautiful beach.  Life is full.

My guess is that if you spoke the name Gaudi most Americans would think you are talking about a former sportscaster.  Travel to Barcelona and stand before Sagrada Familia and the world changes.  Experiencing Antoni Gaudi’s unfinished church is a spiritual passage.  Dedicated to an architecture drawing its forms, lines and structure from nature Gaudi shook the world in the early 1900s.  This Frank Lloyd Wright fan of straight, clean lines and mission furniture now lives in an expanded world.

In pre-trip planning with a widely traveled friend the line emerged, “Barcelona is all about Gaudi.”  My impressions take in more, of course, as did hers, but Gaudi startles my world perspective.  His work takes my breath away.  An enormous life labor captures purity within nature.  Art is not confined to canvas.

As Italy and France freaks, Elizabeth and I walk Barcelona with a prejudice.  Its sweet nesting on the Mediterranean soothes.  Just as we think we have a sense of this city we round a corner and are charmed by yet a new character.

Catalunya and La Rambla, where we’re staying, make New York Christmas shopping weekend seem sparsely populated.  Young, beautiful people own its streets.  There is confidence bordering on arrogance.  Knowing experience will temper it doesn’t alter knowing that the beauty of this place earns arrogance.

Tomorrow is the Picasso museum and a flight to Southern France.  Immersed in beauty we move with humility.