SPQR

"Ben' tornato a casa."Teracotta facades crumbling like forno a legna focaccia, cobblestones smooth as black ice, vicoli and piazze thronged to within an inch of their immortal lives with sweat-slathered tourists - Rome in August.

But we'd been blessed with the wedding present of a week's stay in a magisterial apartment high above Via Giulia by the generous Marcia and Stefano Starace, so not even Vespa-melting midday heat could stop us from smiling, then licking our gelato.

Er' gran' testa di cazzo stands on the same spot in the forum where Caesar tossed his first salad.

La ragazzina senza mutandine ponders the transience of intransigence, right after tagging an ancient piece of marble with her nickname "Godzitu."

Il burino dalle tette morbide seconds before bruising his septum trying to enter the apartment building on Via Giulia. The door is actually normal sized, but Sean has grown giant after ten consecutive days of carbo-charging. Or is this a trompe l'oeil like the one in Palazzo Spada, just down the street? (No, we don't have a picture of that one. Look it up on Google, dude.)

La bambola col' culo che uccide engages in the age-old tradition of trusting that Roman public fountains aren't conduits for the Dengue Fever.

Houdini, il pupazzo metaforico, tastes pizza bianca on the Spanish Steps, right before buying a knock-off Gucci purse, a biplane sculpted from a Coke can, and a pair of magically dancing Mickey and Minnie Mouse cutouts from a nearby Sri Lankan peddler. You can't take this guy anywhere.

Just another kiss on a bridge at sunset. You may not groove on the deep romance this act holds for us, unless you happened to be there on a fateful day above Montmercy Falls in Quebec. But mushy stuff aside, isn't the Ponte Rotto in the background pretty adorable for being built in 179 bc and still standing to this day?

Another romantic moment we spent insieme was actually more like an hour and a half long, and resulted in very sore necks. We drove to the top of one of the seven hills outside Rome (Monte Mario) to get what we hoped would be an unobstructed look at the Perseid meteor shower that fell at full strength the night of August the 12th. We witnessed sixteen golden stars streak across the hazy, light-polluted sky, then were like basta!

A belladonna on the way to the Terme di Caracalla to witness the ballet of Romeo e Giulietta.

A coglione on the way home from the Camp De' Fiori where he went vegetable shopping. An exotic life it was.

The Villa Doria Pamphili was one of Sean's favorite childhood stomping grounds, so he and Desi stomped a soccer ball there for old times' sake. All around them, pine trees stifled chuckles.

A further humiliation was having our car broken into one night, within 40 feet and plain sight of the local police station. The ladro made off with a cheap basketball and chair cushion we'd bought in Paris, but busted the door lock pretty good getting to them. No photo of this one, unfortunately.

But whatchu gonna do? Just keep on eating. Our last supper in Rome was pleasantly spent right beside the Portico D'Ottavia, in the old Jewish Ghetto, at Da Giggetto.

The myth goes that if you toss a coin toward the Trevi fountain, and hit a tourist in the face instead, you will return to Rome someday with your own children in tow...

We miss the Riviera, so we revisit it.

The horror! Clerical error! Bureaucratic oversight! We forgot to post a few of our favorite pics from Cap d'Ail, another swell town on the Cote d'Azur, where we found a secret (okay, some other people knew about it too, but they were totally locals) beach, hundreds of steps below the cliff-side highway. We enjoyed watching the tanned, speedo-wearing men throw themselves into the water from the cliffs, as much as they enjoyed watching Desi take her top off.



Above, Sean tries his hand at an inverted double-wedgie with nipple twist.

Below, the beaming blonde overlooks the sculpture-garden-zoo of the Chateau Chevre D'Or hotel in Eze. Moments later, her hefty hirsute brunette beau threw himself off that same ledge into the water hundreds of meters below. Perfect entry, no splash.

We now return you to the blog already in progress.

Take a Lucca this!

We didn't want to leave the south of France, not even a bit, but one of us had begun to long for the salty glory of Pizza Bianca, the chance to speak fluently again, and the right to gesticulate wildly with his hands.

So we set the GPS on "stun" and zipped across the border into Italy, the country that taught Sean everything he knows, ironically, about french kissing. Having long pondered the option of spending a day in the ocean-cliffy Cinqueterre region, we decided instead to plot a course to the medieval villagino of Lucca, with a quick swing through Portofino to compare the Italian and French Rivieras. In the end count, both win.

That's water, not solid sapphire.

That's a tourist, not a weathered fisherman. Also, Portofino in the b.g.

After hours of mole-like burrowing through the endless network of Italian tunnels, we surfaced just outside the huge ancient city walls of Lucca, where we'd booked a room in a tiny modern bed and breakfast that sat next to a replica-firearm and cross-bow store. Sean wanted to buy many lovely and dangerous gifts for our friends, but we figured air travel's tough enough already these days.

Lucca! A city so old, the friggin' towers've got trees growin' outta' their noggins! Craaaazy stuff. Is that a cuisinart in Sean's pants?

Lucca was something of a ghost town in early August - thank goodness the beautiful buildings don't head for the sea as well - so we took advantage of the empty streets by renting bikes.

T'was the highlight of our first leg of our Italy visit, the bike riding. We swooped around the whole city on top of the rampart walls surrounding it, with views of the Tuscan hills on every side. We thanked goodness we'd carbo-charged the night before. The locals thanked goodness Desiree wore a skirt.

The most famous local, of course, was the composer Giacomo Puccini, to whom Desi prayed that night, asking for the chance to find a good restaurant still open in August. Giacomo is a generous spirit, and blessed us with not only a delicious dinner that night, but also a really swell lunch the next day. The devil's bargain, of course, is that we were cursed to eat nothing but pasta for the rest of our days.

Desi no happy with just pasta. Desi need sushi, or Desi get all pouty.

Desi would just have to wait.

The Cote with the Mote

Where have they been? What've they been up to? Too much travel, not enough blogging! Please forgive our laxity. Like the fabled butcher who sat on his meat grinder, we've gotten a little behind in our work, and we certainly regret it. Please forgive. Here's some fresh meat patties for your delectation.

St. Jean Cap Ferrat, Eze, Villefranche: Sometimes we think we visit these cities simply because they're so fun to pronounce. After being landlocked in lavenderous Aix en Provence, we did the tres French thing and flocked to the ocean. The Cote d'Azur has a reputation for being gorgeous, sun-drenched and scantily-clad. We found this theory to be well supported by empirical evidence.

Our first glimpse of the French Riviera: St. Maxime. The roads were crowded, but they were nothing compared to the beaches. Ample flesh per square inch of pebbles. If there were actual sand on these beaches, it would just be too perfect. It's a necessary flaw, like Owen Wilson's nose.
High above one of St.Jean's bays, Desi sports a pink shirt to match the pink skies.

Trundling down to waterside from our hotel high on a hill, voila our view of St.Jean's harbor. We waited for the omniscient multi-colored talking dolphins to leap from the sea and grant us three wishes, but it turns out that the view was magical enough.

A view of the gardens surrounding our hotel, the Claire Logis..."Why provide air-conditioning when we provide cold water?"
On the way to dinner at Calypso in Villefranche sur Mer, a colorful elbow of a harbor several hairpin turns west.

The sweaty, contented end of our walk around the perimeter of Cap Ferrat. Desi dressed nautical, Sean dressed seasick. If anyone from J.Crew wants to sponsor this photograph, we'll have our people talk to your people.

Sean and Desi take in magic hour, a juicy peche blanche and the world's softest prosciutto on a seaside perch in front of someone's secret dungeon lair on the water.

Eze Village: Camouflaged to look like a rock, this castle actually offers things to eat and buy! As with most castles, we like to imagine knights in chain-mail leaning over the parapets, dumping hot-oil-filled water-balloons on marauding Turks. Perhaps both of us read too much Gary Larsen. (With apologies to the Turkmen.)

Speaking of Turkmen...

The spiral path of history evidenced: Sean's parental units, back in the day, and our blogging heroes, rockin' it current, in the precise same spot high above Eze... "What a falling-off was there" to quote Hamlit.

Sean blends in, in his chameleonic way, with the stone passageways of mountaintop Eze. This way, the tourist shop owners can't solicit him.

Chiznillin' at the tip-top d'Eze. Can you see our hotel in the distance? Can you see Sean's tit sweat?

Les amants take a breather in an Ezian Cave. Is isn't photoshop: Desi actually has some semblance of a tan.

The midget widgets followed us everywhere. This grafitti artist, well known in Paris for gracing doorways and cornices with Pac-Man reminiscent mosaic, vacations in Eze too. Good taste.

Moon rises over the yachts in the harbor of St. Jean Cap Ferrat. Shortly before, other moons rose in the water nearby...

Doozie Von Toozie taking a break from captaining her ship and showing the Rivierans what white really means.

We just happened to hit Cap Ferrat at the same time as the revolutionaries who want to secede from the Union and have it be its own Monarchy, like Monaco. Luckily, we weren't injured by the mortar and pestle.

Desi leapfrogs in the reflecting pool at the Villa of Beatriz Rothschild.

The tea room for Beatriz Rothschild. When she built her manse, the Manhattan-sized cruise ship was not in the picture. But neither were nonfat lattes. We enjoyed both, ourselves. Yay for modern times.

A classical example of the "muckle."

Des in Eze: can you tell that she is hanging onto the cliff for dear life, as is the balcony at the Chateau de Chevre d'Or?

Euroad Trip: Like America, only Smaller.

On August 2nd, having packed our unattractive micro-minivan full of baggage and every accoutrement that we've managed to acquire over the last 6 weeks (electric fan, hot water bottle, frisbee, collapseable hampers, basketball, woven market bag etc.) we struck out from Paris and threaded the scenic highways of la France, en route to points south; first stop: Aix-en-Provence.

But first, voici some things we've learned about European Road Trips, for those of you thinking of embarking on your own:

1) They ain't jokin' with the tolls. You have to buy your right to party on the French highways. You take a tiny ticket, and two hundred kilometers later, you pay them 36 dollars. It's just that easy!

2) However, your toll money is put to excellent use. Every 20 klicks or so was another Aire, or rest stop (not that it was an issue, but the French highways would be a great place to have diarrhea. Every 12 minutes, a new chance to explore their plumbing), each and every one stocked with charmingly colored bathrooms, entire walls of espresso-squirting vending machines, terrines de canard and fois gras on the shelves, and elaborate exercise areas, including our favorite: a climbing wall and (according to signage) javelin toss area.

Sean burns off some steam at the climbing wall rest area. You have to make it to the top to get a discount on the tolls.

3) Once off the highways, they really don't like to use stop lights... Far too much governmental control. They prefer the roundabout, or traffic circle - always an adventure in a standard transmission vehicle - with waves of motorini and bold European drivers zipping around the central fountains at high speed. We crossed approximately 30 traffic circles on our trip south. We kept thinking the disembodied GPS girl was teasing when she'd firmly instruct us time and again to "Proceed into Roundabout." But she has no sense of humor.

4) It's a crying shame that Desi never really learned to drive stick. Maybe on the Autobahn.

5) The gas pumps are really fast here. The tanks in cars are small. You can fill up in the amount of time it takes to readjust the part in your hair. We now understand why there are so many rest areas. Did we mention the price of gas? 1,40E per litre. This comes out to about 7 dollars a gallon. Good thing we're driving that hybrid. Oh, wait.

6) So much for Europeans driving tiny cars... Sure they bop around the cities in their pcoket-sized Smart Cars and Fiat Puntos, but when they take to the open road, they mount up the Audi station wagons, Ford Focuses (reprazent!) and Mercedes mini-vans. We fear it's the American influence. But they can definitely get off their ecological high horse - we haven't seen a Prius yet!

7) The French have preposterously practical names for cars. Like the Renault "Trafic" and "Kangaroo," the Peugot "Partner," the Fiat "Panda" and "Idea. " We think they choose random Anglicized words to make their rides sound exotic, just as we in the States call our cars things like the Impreza or Corolla or Elantra to sound vaguely Euro-stylish.

While on the road, we reminisced fondly about the city we were leaving behind. Here is a small window on our memories, as Paris diminished in the rear-view mirror:



AIX-TRA HYPER TOP TOP COOL!

After about 7 hours in what we like to call the "Opitel Minerva", we rolled into the home of Cezanne, Provencal tablecloths, lemons, olive oil and women of a certain age looking to relive various Peter Mayle books. Aix had more restaurants per capita than it might have had capita... Every turn around a winding, cobblestone street led to a square teeming with tables and chairs of competing restaurants that spilled into each other, all promising sunny Provencal fare. After a good night's sleep on the world's firmest mattress at the Hotel Saint Christophe, we took a walking tour of the city and followed in Cezanne's footsteps very thoroughly. The tour even took us past places he had written about in his journal as "not being very good."

Desi enjoys what may be her last escargot. Why is that? Because irony of all ironies (we are about to move to Maine after all), she night have become allergic to mollusks. We believe this because a marmite - all joking aside - she ordered at Chez Maxime, packed with every shellfish in the Mediterranean Sea, briefly swelled her tongue to the size of a baby marmot.

On your every-day-oh-isn't-this-picturesque street in Aix. We think Cezanne's mother was buried in the church behind Desi. And to her left is Cezanne's parking space.

Sean leans across the street from Cezanne's birthplace. Someday, people will take pictures of this corner that Sean Mewshaw once deigned to lean upon.

Sean is about to become human again with the help of a French coffee and a juicy Croque Madam. In this picture, he is still a troll under the bridge. Pretty handsome for a troll though, n'est-ce pas?

Run of the mill Aixatian Cuteness. They sold vital things like metal plates that said "Chien Mechant" and plastic lavender-scented placemats with leaping French cows. And yes, the store is called the "Cat Dreamer."

Desi in a rare square not overwhelmed by restaurants or women of a certain age.

Sean walks the melon-colored streets, shocked that the language is still French, when clearly this feels like Italy. Above, he's already practicing the hand gestures.

The fountain holding down one end of the Cours Mirabeau. Ocular proof of at least one roundabout.

Stay tuned...the South of France is next! Will we show our pale, doughy flesh to the bronzed St. Tropezians Gods? Only time will tell!