italy

Postcards from Italy

St Andrew’s alley, Assisi

Ceiling of the presbyterian, San Vitale, Ravenna

Cavalieri Hilton
…minutes from the heart of Rome, with a unique view from the magnificent 15 acres estate on Monte Mario.

Villa Carlotta on Lake Como, Italy

Genoa

January 1973

We are in Genoa waiting for the train to take us on our way to St Raphael, France. This is such an interesting city – walked down to the docks yesterday aft. and saw the huge ships coming and going. Just great! Everybody seems to be getting along fine – so far!! Steve even told Va. he was glad he had come!!!! We hated to leave Switzerland – it is so beautiful.. but every new thing we see is great!! Food is good. The kids have lived on spaghetti!! They love it!

Love, Jean

The Coliseum, Rome, 1973

Lago Maggiore, 1976

This is where Pa has finally returned to! This is all we see from the windows of the house – quite unbelievable! The water is a little cold for me but the weather is good. Warmest greetings to you.

Lanna

Florence, 1969

Piazza Signoria e Loggia dell Orcagna

I love this piazza. Spent many hours there.

San Rafael, France
June 1973

We are here in a nice hotel right on a truly beautiful beach. We spent from 8:30 am till about 3 pm on the train from Genoa – thru Monte Carlo – along the mediterranean. very impressive. We’ll be here 2 days so can rest and enjoy the beach and beauty. All ok.

Love, Dede

Fountain of Square of Spanish Trinity of Mount

Rome, 1968

We arrive Saturday night in Rome after a lovely drive through the south of France. Rome is incredible beautiful and we are very happy with Eduardo’s family and my sister. I hope everything is all right in Mexico. How was Tom’s graduation? Give my regards to Bill when he comes back. My sister is very busy with her exams but I hope she will be finished on Friday.

Love, Stella

Rio and Greeks’ bridge

Venice, June 1968

After some delay getting visas for Hungary in Rome, we came to this beautiful Venice – crowded with German tourists. Will take the train for Budapest tomorrow morning; Sheila will come along for four or five days and then fly back to Mexico via London. Hope your African safari went all well! 

Best Regards, Stella

Panorama from Boboli’s garden

Florence, August, 1984

The Pantheon

Rome, August, 1972

Dear Friends

It is hard to believe I’m in Italy – we flew over to be with Gay on her 2 weeks vacation after working at the US Embassy for a month – Rome is a fabulous city with its ruins, museums, parks, fountains, pines, etc. We drove to Florence yesterday and it is a most interesting historical city also. We are going to Venice before flying back to Washington together.

Best wishes

Ravenna, S. Apollinare Nuovo, mosaic 6th century
Christ separating the sheep from the goats

Ravenna, S. Vitale, mosaic 6th century
The sacrifice of Abel and Melchisedec

Facebook Remembers

Nine year ago I spent an idyllic week in a villa on Lake Como in Italy. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. It was transformational. This week Facebook keeps digging up photos of that week to show me in my “memories”. How thoughtful of them. (??) Anyway, I ended up picking out a few.

We had been to our school reunion in Lugano, Switzerland and five of us decided to extend the trip by renting a villa in Lezzeno, right on the lake. We took the bus to Bellagio. We rented a boat and cruised up and down the lake hovering at George Clooney’s place and the Villa D’Este hotel where people pay $1,500 to stay. We swung by the Villa del Balbianello where they filmed Star Wars. And watched sea planes land outside Richard Branson’s villa. We rode up the Funivia to Pigra and took in the view. A local chef fed us dinner. It was perfect.

The shops in Bellagio

Villa D’Este

Villa del Balbianello
Richard Branson’s place with cool trees

I even made an attempt to copy that last photo in needlepoint form. The flowers surrounding the villa really impressed me.

An unforgettable time.

Cars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been seeing Fiat 500’s in my neighborhood lately. I want one. Of course my boyfriend wants the Arbath souped up version. I have a feeling I wouldn’t be driving much if we get that. But they are cool looking. The original “cinquecento” was produced in Italy from 1957 to 1975. I remember it was tiny. We used to squeeze into them hitching rides in Italy. We used to make jokes about them. It was a mere 10 feet long and honestly not very comfortable. The new Fiat 500 sold today is a full foot longer!

When I moved to Russia, I came across the Zhiguli. When I first saw it I immediately thought of the cinquecento. Interestingly enough, in the mid 1960’s the Zhiguli was produced by the Volga Automobile Works (VAZ) in a collaboration between Fiat and the Soviet government. The Zhiguli was modeled after the original Fiat 500 and was exported to the West after 1975 as the Lada.

The Zhiguli is small and boxy. I would sometimes see very large Russian policemen cramming themselves into the Zhiguli four at a time. I wondered what would happen if there was an emergency. Would they be able to extract themselves in time?

The Russian car that I really liked was the Volga. It was the car used most for city government officials and usually came with an official driver. In Moscow there was no taxi service, you just hailed down a passing car and negotiated a price and they took you where you wanted to go. When my son was in pre-school, I would go out every morning and hail a car to take us to school. I was too harried to manage a stroller, a screaming child, and a bus in the middle of the Russian winter. And the cars were usually pretty cheap.

One day I lucked out and managed to flag down a black Volga. Volgas are mid sized sedans with comfortable seats and plenty of room for the child and the stroller. Much better than a Zhiguli!! I was in heaven. The next morning I went out as usual to flag a car, and there was the same Volga sitting at the end of my drive. He was waiting for me! Apparently our schedules were in sync. For the next couple of months, I had a driver every morning waiting for me. I even managed to talk him into taking me other places as well, like the airport, and the vet.

And then one day, he wasn’t there anymore.

Oh well, it was great while it lasted!!