As I grow older - amazing how easily that happens these days - I find that I have more and more desire to research trips before I embark. In fact, as a fairly recent retiree I have not all that much else on my plate - on purpose. If I have one goal in addition to/conjunction with living life to its fullest for as long as possible (as you know, for me "la vita e troppo breve") it is to travel "deeper" as a magazine I occasionally read has it, to seek out new places with a sense of purpose.
That purpose may be no more than reading up on a place that I've not yet seen, but it usually takes on a more intellectual format. Planning a recent trip, for example, I focused as much as possible on Bernini, his life and his art, in Rome. It may seem a bit odd, as in a trip lasting three full weeks I spent only four days the Eternal City, but although I traveled to other locations during the trip, I honed in on Bernini and the time in which he lived in pre- and post-trip research and learned more about the other places I visited while doing so.
During my recent travels through Europe I have developed an increased awareness of borders and frontiers that have so often changed, usually by force, from the ancient world to the present.
So called "barbarians" moved into what was once the Roman Empire (barbarian being a Roman's term for anyone NOT a Roman), marking out sections of it for themselves, re-defining boundaries as they did. Later, great powers such as the Church and the Holy Roman Empire, famous families (the Hapsburgs, Hohenstauffens, Sforzas, Bourbons and more) fought for land and defined it again, creating new frontiers, re-drawing borders. Still later, Napoleon took almost all of Europe for himself, after which new countries formed in the late 19th century, adding complexity and confusion to what belonged to whom. And the conclusion of each of the 20th century's "World" wars saw frontiers changed and borders again redrawn. More confusion followed in the post-Soviet era and now madness in the Middle East is causing hordes of refugees and others to migrate, primarily into Europe. "Things" change, don't they? For better or for worse, there you have it.
An earlier journey included Alsace-Lorraine, one of these "frontier" areas. I learned that cities such as Strasbourg were tugged from Germanic control to French and back to Germanic with every petty war - and some not-so-petty wars. There is one very good reason for this. Strasbourg sits on the Rhine, one of the most important waterways in all of Europe. The Rhine originates in Switzerland and flows along the Franco-German border, then farther north before it empties into the North Sea near Amsterdam.
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| This is a full shot of the Strasbourg building noted in the "Aside" just below |
The photos above and below are from a boat tour I took of the river at Strasbourg. This tour moves not along the Rhine but along a tributary just to its west, the River Ill, which cuts through the center of the city. A building on the Ill is now named GALLIA (for France), as one can see on its facade. When the Germans held the city the same space on the facade read GERMANIA, and it was not until after the second world war that that plaque reverted to GALLIA.
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| A close-up of the building pictured just above, showing "Gallia", which was once "Germania" |
As a result less harmful effects of being on a frontier of sorts are also quite obvious, for example in its cuisine. One of the most popular dishes in the region is Flammekueche, but it is also called Tarte Flambee, a flatbread with any number of assorted toppings. Take it from me, quite delicious, whatever it is called. Some restaurants list both names, one Germanic, one French. I learned by accident that even the name of such an innocent dish can become debatable. A friend of mine, who happens to be a French chef, wrote me in what I am almost certain was playful ire, correcting me when I posted a photo of what I called Flammekueche on Facebook. He scolded, "That is a tarte flambée, not Flammekueche!" So the battles continue, let us hope only in this relatively benign manner.
Another of my recent adventures began in Switzerland, which in its early years consisted of independent cantons. These gradually fused, some willing, some dragged kicking and screaming into a confederation of sorts, beginning as far back as the 13th century. And on my most recent trip I headed into northern Italy where a curious blend of Swiss and Italian (language, food, culture) is the norm; from there on to northeastern Italy which mixes Austrian with Italian into a similar stew; and finally I trained to Slovenia, which has been kicked about by various outside forces for centuries, only coming into its own after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Borders; a tour guide I met in Slovenia called them "lines on a map, no more." I suppose he has a point - he should know, from experience. But I see them as more than that, as agitating at least, frustrating people on and near either side of each artificial "line on a map."
My thoughts on this deepened when I began reading one of several books I picked up to deepen my travel experience. The particular book may seem somewhat odd, as it is a work of fiction by Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms.
During World War I, before the U.S. entered the conflict, Hemingway enlisted in the Italian Army, and became an ambulance driver. He was assigned to a section of Europe that saw some of the bloodiest fighting in that bloody war: the mountainous regions in Northeastern Italy (the Dolomites) and next door, (in the Alps) the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italians vs Austrians and Germans. Today the area is part Austrian, part Italian, and part Slovenian, which places comprised almost the entirety of my explorations a little over a month ago.
Hemingway's book begins in that war zone. The hero, an American ambulance driver, meets a British nurse. They fall in love, but he is wounded on a mission and is taken to a hospital in Milan, well away from the fighting. She contrives to join him there, their love deepens, she gets pregnant, he is sent back to the front and in a mass Italian retreat from Austrian and German troops he sees the futility of war and says farewell to arms when he plunges into a river and manages to get back to her in the town of Stresa on Lago Maggiore, a lake that includes towns in Italy and in Switzerland. He is now a deserter and they find that they must escape in a boat, rowing all night from Stresa to Locarno, located in neutral Switzerland. I'll not share the tragic ending of the tale, as that would spoil it for any of my readers who've not read Hemingway.
I began re-reading the novel on the train from Zurich (my arrival city in Europe - see my post Memories and Musings I) to Stresa and was quickly swept up in the action. I remembered it as a work of romantic fiction, the tale of a wounded ambulance driver and his love. I had first read it, after all, as a deeply, darkly Romantic young man, but what struck me on my recent reading of it were the grimly realistic renderings of war - a - war as hell. The love story in fact was related in a rather saccharine manner, and often rang a tad off key, to me. But the descriptions of driving an ambulance into bombs and mayhem, the sudden deaths of friends and colleagues, the story of the march out of the war zone, and especially the dramatic desertion of the hero via a swollen river alive with danger - these now struck me as the center of the novel, and what made it a great novel, a fine anti-war story.
While I'm now convinced that it is not the "meat" of the book, the love story is very much based in fact, as at the hospital in Milan Hemingway DID fall in love with his nurse. His wounds, shrapnel all through his leg, centered on the knee, healed slowly, and during that time Hemingway and another wounded driver spent 10 days in nearby Stresa, that resort town I've mentioned on Lago Maggiore. There he stayed at a hotel that is still standing, the Grand Hotel des Isles Borromees, in room 106 to be exact.
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| The Grand Hotel des Borromees, where Hemingway stayed in Stresa |
That hotel is far too dear for my wallet, but I did walk by it and through its gardens. Hemingway returned to the hotel at least twice, always staying in room 106. It is now called the Hemingway Suite and according to travel guru Rick Steves goes for about $2,000 a night.
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| The Grounds of the "Hemingway Hotel" |
I stayed at a much less expensive place, the Hotel Elena, on the main piazza in the city, a faded but very comfortable abode for which I paid under $100 a night - bed and breakfast.
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| The views from my balcony in the Hotel Elena |
While I was there I also took a short boat trip to two of the three "Isles Borromees", or Borromean Islands, so-called for the wealthy Italian Renaissance family that owned them. The nearest of these to Stresa, and very near indeed, is the Isola Bella, on which there is a palace that is still inhabited by descendants of that family. On the palace grounds are beautiful gardens and several startlingly beautiful white peacocks, possibly more photographed than the flora. In fact one British fellow said to me in passing. "Damned peacocks! I've got more photos of them than of my wife!"
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| Isola Bella, a boat approaching it, and mountains beyond |
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| a peacock in the gardens on Isola Bella |
The second island used to be called the Isola Pescatore, or the Isle of the Fisherman. It is also named Isola Superiore, and while it is called one of the Borromean Isles is not actually owned by the family.
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| Isola Pescatore, Hemingway's favorite |
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| The tiny beach on the tiny Isola Pescatore |
But it was Hemingway's favorite, a tiny place (I made a circuit of it in 10 minutes) where then only fishermen lived. Now it consists of hotels, restaurants and tourist shops, but it remains charming. On benches facing the lake people sit serenely and read. I like to think that many are reading (or re-reading) A Farewell to Arms.
The third isle, Isola Madre, I did not visit, though I had a great view of it from my table on Isola Pescatore, where I et incredibly fresh fish, sipped local white wine, and pulled out my copy of the book. Isola Madre boasts another palace of the Borromean family and more gardens, but two isles of three were enough for me.
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| Isola Madre, from Isola Pescatore, using a zoom |
I found myself traveling in reverse order from that in which the events in the novel occurred, so it was only when I finished the book, while in the Dolomite Mountains, that I was able to think back on Stresa (with pleasure) and understand why it was the perfect point for the great escape to Switzerland from Italy for Hemingway's hero and heroine. If I'd had one more day in Stresa I might have re-lived their trip, albeit in a much more comfortable manner, via the Lago Maggiore Express, which takes one from Stresa all the way up to Locarno and back in a day. If I get there again, and I hope I do, I'll definitely embark upon it!
More on borders and frontiers - and possibly more on Hemingway - from my next posts on this trip.
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