Entirely the Wrong Witch

It is around 9pm on the last day of October, All Hallow's Eve. Back home, in America, it is Halloween, and everywhere kids are looking forward to the end of the school day when they can dress up and hit the streets to fill pillowcases with candy begged from the neighbors.

Here in Venice, it is simply October 31, the day before the Feast of All Saints. In Italy, the time to play dress-up isn't for another four months and the moveable feast of Carnevale, that Fat Tuesday of partying before Ash Wednesday ushers in the 40 austere days of Lent.

So why is it that the pizzeria I just left is packed with babbling kids, their faces smeared with makeup, pointy hats on their heads and gauzy or silky capes tied at their necks? Why did the marble fountainhead on Campo Santa Maria Formosa have a gaggle of costumed youths sitting upon it, laughing and eating candy? What, in short, the Hell is Halloween doing in the very capital of Carnevale?

I should have been ready for it, really. I knew it was coming. I saw the signs. The stalls on Riva degli Schiavoni that hawk Italian team soccer shirts and knock-off designer scarves to tourists last week added black or orange hats stacked like felt traffic cones. Window decorations across Northern Italy have increasingly featured pumpkins, or cardboard strings of bats and skeletons stretched over the display of pastries. Last night, Rete 4 did a mini-marathon of Simpsons Halloween episodes, and I saw from the ads that tonight most TV channels were planning to screen horror movies.

Chalk another one up to American cultural imperialism. It's often not as blatant as McDonalds and the bad Hollywood action movies upon which most Euro-snobs fixate when denigrating our country's overweening influence on the modern world. Sometimes it's a subtle as changes to the holiday traditions of youth, and that's what I find so bone-chillingly terrifying. For the first time in years, I'm genuinely frightened this Halloween night. I feel witness to the ending of a cultural era, and as a lapsed anthropologist, I can't say I'm happy about it.

I'm also ticked off that they've got the entirely wrong witch in mind, and the wrong holiday in which to stick her. Various holiday traditions from the US and Italy are increasingly becoming jumbled, their meanings disappearing. It's like culture by Cuisinart. Just as Italy already has its own holiday for wearing masks (Carnevale), it has a holiday for witches, too. Only it's not on October 31. It's on January 6. The witch of Italy is a good witch, not a broomstick-riding hag, and she brings—or at least brought—sweets and presents to Italian children on the day of the Epiphany.

That’s why this is not a story of Halloween in Venice in 2005, but rather of the day after New Year's in Rome in 2002.

THE CHRISTMAS MARKET
The Christmas market on Piazza Navona has almost entirely gone over to the generic stalls, games, and toys/candy trailers common to every outdoor fair in Italy. The artisan stalls offering handmade presepio (Nativity scene) figures now make up perhaps only one-fifth of the market. There's still a carousel in the center, and plenty of the toss-the-ring-fail-to-win-the-stuffed-teddy third rate carny games ranged around it.

But most of the trailers and carts in between hawk either two dozen variations on the peanut brittle theme, mass-produced toys and trinkets, ciambelle (donuts) the size of dinner plates, cheap knock-off jerseys of famous soccer players and other calcio memorabilia, or Hollywood-induced Santa-Christmas paraphernalia. However, a few stands at the north end still carry La Befana, the Christmas Witch.

THE KORPORATE KRIS KRINGLE
Now we all know that Hollywood long ago corrupted the kindly old Kris Kingle/St. Nicholas icon to create the treacly, ultra-capitalist "Santa Claus," who has become so commercial that, though legal loopholes and contractual obligations, he can easily be replaced with Tim Allen (The Santa Clause) or Whoppi Goldberg (Call Me Claus) to suit the needs of Disney or Ted Turner, respectively.

This commercialization has been a long process. The Salvation Army has prostituted Santa on street corners for decades--for highly laudable goals and worthy charities, obviously, but no matter how you look at it, this paramilitary Christian organization has in point of fact turned the Santa image into a street beggar, a symbol of cash flow, and that's what I'm talking about here.

Even the kindly Kris Kringle from Miracle on 34th Street is, in fact, no more than the Macy's Santa, shilling for a department store--though the movie is careful not to ascribe to him any miraculous powers or actually answer the question of whether he is, in fact, Santa Claus. The sacks of letters that arrive in the courtroom at the 11th hour are, when it comes down to it, just a happy coincidence brought on by a self-serving postal employee, and even the judge accepts them as proof merely to escape a sticky political situation and selfishly ensure his own position. Seriously. Watch it again: It's an astoundingly depressing movie.

This presents-under-the-tree American Santa Claus has been successfully exported all over the world and has in the process more or less obliterated many local customs, culture, and traditions--which is of course exactly what the French are always griping we Americans do. In Italy, La Befana, the Christmas Witch, used to bring Italian children their presents, leaving them in stockings hung on the fireplace on the day of the Epiphany, January 6. This makes perfect sense, as that's when the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem with their offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh--which collectively still hold the title of Least Appropriate Infant Gifts Ever.

These days it's Babbo Natale--that red-robed chap with a belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly--who leaves wrapped gifts under a Teutonic evergreen in living rooms across Italy, just like they've seen done in countless schlocky American films. La Befana may show up, belatedly, 12 days later to stuff some candy into the hearth stockings along with, perhaps, the Italian equivalent of a lump of coal: a small bundle of twigs, symbolic of the whipping the mischievous youngsters undoubtedly deserve for some infraction they got away with in the previous year.

It's interesting that, although she's lost the majority of her Christmas role (though she's still associated with the season) the Christmas Witch has reverted to the heart of her identity: the noun of her being, rather than the adjective. Santa may have horned in on her territory and stolen her job, but La Befana is still a witch.

SWEEP AWAY YOUR TROUBLES
La Bafana's Christmas gift-giving role has been greatly reduced, at least in this jaded big city. She's now sold mainly as a scaccia guai, one who "chases away troubles" with her handy broom. The broom has long been tied into the mythology of witches, and not just as a means of transportation. It’s also been one of the most useful methods for keeping witches away. In many European cultures, a witch's primary weakness is that she cannot help but stop to count objects (or to untie knots; we still have an echo of this in many personal "my grandma's old house was haunted" ghost stories, which often feature the poltergeist fiddling with boot laces and the like).

One way to escape a pursuing witch is to toss beans on the ground behind you. Cursing, she has to stop to count them--and unlike Rain Man with his toothpicks, she has to go on a bean-by-bean basis. Similarly, the age-old method to protect your home from witch access--before electronic security systems--was to leave a broom propped against the doorjamb. The witch arriving in the dead of night to cast a spell on you is foiled when she has to stop and count the broom bristles, which are so numerous and (in traditional brooms actually made from twigs of the broom plant) so crooked she keeps loosing count and never gets around to committing the witchcraft. Seriously. There are still tons of little towns, especially in Southern Italy, and especially at this time of year, where you can wander the whitewashed alleyways and see a Home Security Broom prudently propped at every single front door.

Obviously this is all assuming the witch is evil, whereas our Befana is clearly a good egg. It's no good looking for too much consistency in witch lore, as females with supernatural powers have been invoked for so many different and diverse purposes across the ages-from the Greek Medea to Harry Potter's brainy schoolmate Hermione Granger--that there's no core, official type of witch in human mythology. She can be good or bad as the story or ritual calls for, and one village's protectress sorceress is to their rival neighboring village an evil hag in league with Satan.

But back to Italy's beneficial Befana--who as a scaccia guai is in reality using her broom to keep other, evil witches away, sort of a double agent on our side. A Preventative Strike Witch, if you prefer. Good or no, she's still a witch, and as such comes in three flavors, as witches always do.

THE THREE AGES OF WITCHERY (OR: AN ACRESS'S CAREER ARC)
This scaccia guai edition of a witch or Befana is the proverbial hag, the mistress of powerful supernatural (or, some would have, evil) forces, with the fearsome ability to cast pure magic spells. There's also the porta fortuna (fortune-bringer) Befana. She's the mother figure, an apple-cheeked grandmamma wearing glasses and wielding the earth-force, exerting the family-based power of command and control from a calm, nurturing center. The principessa (princess) form of La Befana (or any witch) is the maiden, with a young woman's primal power to bewitch and ensnare men.

We still see echoes of this core coven triad even in latter-day tales of American witchery. The Wizard of Oz has its hag witch (the Wicked Witch of the West), its kindly mother witch (Glenda the Good Witch); even the maiden/princess witch (Dorothy herself, of course, who quickly enlists three males to accompany her and protect her on her quest, and indeed shows her own, inherent magic powers in the heel-clicking finale).

It's the same old symbolic three-step that film actresses are always (justifiably) complaining about, that there are only ever the three classic Gravesian roles out there for women: maiden, matron, or screaming psycho-bitch who boils her boyfriend's pet rabbit. (Though, to be fair, the "maiden" role is usually available in both Freudian flavors--virgin or whore--so really, there is a grand total of four female roles in Hollywood. This is what drives so many good actresses to the stage.)

BACK IN THE CHRISTMAS MARKET
In Piazza Navona's market, all three archetypes of Befana dolls appear in the stalls, hung from mobiles along the awning, with backups nestled into rows filling boxes beneath. Though the more traditional Italian Befana is the bespectacled porta fortuna grandmothery figure, in recent years, the elderly hag Befana has taken over the stalls. This witchy sort of witch has been heavily influenced by the American Halloween image (something else they learned from Hollywood; there is no Halloween in Italy), and for the most part she is mass-produced cheaply in China.

However, though hags are far more common now, you can find the porta fortuna, dressed in gingham or in woolen robes, or even in striped giallo-rosso (red and yellow) or bianco-azzurro (white and azure) livery--the colors of rival city (Roma) and regional (Lazio) soccer teams, respectively. One stand, a tiny one that bucks the trend by still carrying mostly artisan-made Befanas and other seasonal figures, actually has a small display mobile that makes the most eloquent statement on this whole, slow cultural changeover: tiny Befanas garbed in the white fur-fringed jolly red robes of Santa Claus.

In person, though, the grandmotherly Befana still reigns. The market has even come up with an Italian variant on the department store Santa: a cramped sleigh "pulled" by a plush, life-sized reindeer, its cabin barely managing to seat an odd, cross-cultural couple: a bell-toting, Santa Clausian Babbo Natale and his companion Befana, both huddled against the cold. "Come get your picture taken with la bella Befana!" cries Santa like a carnival barker as he swings his bell.

A father drags along two bundled Italian cherubs, a boy and a girl both under eight, navigating the strolling crowd with a tired but determined look on his face. "Daddy, who's that?" Asks the little boy, pointing to the Befana. The father looks stunned at first, stops in his tracks, and says with a face of horrified disbelief, "But, it's La Befana!" And then the horrible truth of it dawns on him. His own children recognize Babbo Natale right off the bat, but they have no idea who La Befana is.

To them on this wintery January morning, Christmas is undoubtedly already a fading memory of wrapping papers and batteries-not-included. Christmas itself was over, and this strange carnival of lights, noise, peanut brittle, giant ciambelle, and funny-looking dolls dangling from brightly lit trailer awnings was just something to pass the time on January 2. They aren't particularly looking forward to January 6, as Italian kids have for countless generations, because La Befana doesn't visit their house anymore. At most, the Epiphany merely marks for them the last day of Christmas break before heading back to school.

I watch the little family as the father steers them through the crowds, moving more slowly now, haltingly trying to explain about a witch who flies to your house on the Epiphany, a broom between her knees and sack on her back. Just before the crowd swallows them from view, I see the father pause, pluck from a stall's display two comically oversized socks (in the Roma colors of giallo-rosso), and rummage for his wallet.

Looks like La Befana will at least be adding one more house back onto her rounds this January 6. I bet the boy will even get a mini-switch of twigs; I hope there's some candy to go with it. Just so long as no one gets the bright idea to bring him some myrrh.

The Sisters Picchi & the Nobel Prize

Why are there a dozen people crammed into Sorelle Picchi, one of many little salumerie (delis) along Parma's Via Farini? More to the point, why are none of them ordering three etti of prosciutto, a kilo of pecorino, and a box of homemade pasta from old Claudio, who stands behind the counter carefully bundling up giant wedges of aged parmigiano in waxed paper, using the back of his long scissors to -thwiiip!- curl the trailing ends of the red ribbon wrapped around each?

They're waiting. All of them are waiting to squeeze through the little gap between the wall and the wooden counter on which rests the cash register and enter the back room, a chaos of white tablecloths, packed with wooden chairs and bustling women serving simple dishes. Turns out, this is Parma's favorite hidden trattoria, open only for lunch and only to those who know which deli to line up in (plus random travel writers curious as to why a salumeria would be packed at lunchtime).

Occasionally joining Claudio behind the counter was one of the second generation Picchi sisters, fat in that comfortable manner of many Italian women in late middle age--double chinned over a chest of truly prodigious proportions--but sprouting oddly thin arms muscular from a lifetime of slicing salumi. "It'll be a while yet." She announced to the waiting crowd upon returning from one of her trips to the back room. "No one wants to detach themselves from the table. We tried to convince the president of the Bank of Rome to go back to work, but he won't budge!" (I figured that this was some kind of joke phrase--the "bank president" a stock illustrious figure to conjure up for an Italian metaphor I'd never heard before--but when I left, I realized the Banca di Roma was, in fact, right across the street--presidentless, apparently, for the moment.)

I spent a patient half-hour watching this Picchi sister alternately work the automatic slicer and a giant butcher knife to create mixed platters of cured meats destined for diners in the back. So when it was finally my turn to squeeze past the cash register and thread back to a tiny table against the wall, I couldn't help but order a plate of affetatti misti myself.

The simple white plate came heaped with delicate tissues of prosciutto, thick leather sheets of culatello, marbled roundels of copa, a thick, fragrant disc of salame di felino (which, I was relieved to learn, comes from a nearby valley called Felino, not from cats), and a hearty slice of strullaghiello, a pink salami made from copa and so soft it falls apart as I try to slice a bite.

The affetatti arrived with a companion plate containing only two jagged nuggets of parmigiano, each the size of a small child's fist, and creamier and more flavorful than any parmesan I've ever tasted.

Normally, I don't care much for Parma's famous aged cheese. Oh, it's fine to grate over pasta or whatever, but not for eating straight. The problem is, cheese platters are designed to be worked clockwise, starting with the softest and mildest sample on the cutting board and then tasting your way around increasingly more pungent, aged, and veiny varieties. There's always a crooked gem or two of parmigiano waiting at the end of the cheesy clock face, which I always dread arriving at but always eat because I somehow get the feeling it wouldn't be very macho to leave it there--as if I couldn't handle the intensity and was forced to give up--and I hate to be emasculated in the eyes of my waiter.

(This personal failing is also what drives me to accept a grappa duro after a meal when what I really want is a prissy, sweet limoncello, and what has led me over the years to eat deep fried whole frogs soaked in vinegar, braised ass meat, camel stew, snails, and sheep testicles, amongst other delicacies.)

But this parmigiano at Sorelle Picchi was different. Strongly flavored without being tongue-cuttingly sharp, and best of all it had virtually none of that awful grittiness I've come to associate with such foods as aged parmigiano and sandwiches eaten at the beach. I said as much to my waitress, and she agreed. "Most people serve it aged too much." She said. "Here, we serve it young, only about 27 months old, so it's still good for eating."

I was pretty confident that going with the "piatto tradizionale" today wasn't going to turn out as it did last night, when I needed generous lubrications of Lambrusco to help gag down the pesto di cavallo, which turned out to be hamburger patties of horsemeat--served raw and cold. Today it's the far more promising sounding tortelli alle erbette, homemade pasta pillows stuffed with ricotta, parmigiano, and a local wild green simply called "little herb" (long like a beet leaf, but sweet like spinach). The rectangular tortelli came in a grid of nine, dressed in grated parmigiano and a pool of melted butter. Ah, this is more like it! This time, I didn't need the Lambrusco to help wash it down. Not that I didn't have a rapidly emptying bottle of Lambrusco in front of me. Just that I didn't need it as a swallowing aid.

As I waited for the pasta to come out of the open kitchen across the room, where more Picchi women were hard at work alongside mamma--one of the original Sisters Picchi (auntie retired a few years ago) who've been running this trattoria/salumeria for 40 years--I glanced around the dining room. As I did, something started tickling at the back of my mind, so I gave it a few moments to wander about in search of the thought to which it belonged. When it finally did find a home in my memory cells, I almost choked on my prosciutto.

Sitting at the head of the table for ten next to me was an older gentleman in a squashed, pale beige fisherman's canvas hat and affecting a white wool scarf wrapped once around his neck and tucked under the collar of his dark shirt. He was eating mortadella like it's going out of style, and putting away his tortelli alle erbette fast and furious, all the while grinning genially and paying close attention to the conversation swirling around his table. His name was Dario Fo, Italy's greatest living playwright and, as of 1997, a Nobel laurate.

He's in town for a few days, co-presenting a three-night series on "Theater in Italy" at the Teatro Farnese. I know this because I saw posters advertising this fact outside the Teatro's doors, and I seriously considered attending before realizing that I know so very little about Italian theater it would be lost on me, and besides I promised myself that tonight I'd get a good chunk of writing done. I had no idea I'd be lunching with the guy in the same trattoria hidden in the back room of the Sorelle Picchi deli.

In fact, the only reason someone so poorly versed in Italian theater can confirm that it was, indeed, the maestro is that I overheard one of the Picchi (the meat slicer) whispering to a regular client as she squeezed though the gap by the cash register, "Hey, did you see who is here today? Dario Fo!" She smiled and shook her head. "That boy sure does love his mortadella."

I wonder if I should have gone over and told him about the parmigiano?

Good Night, Sleep Tight...And That's All

I'm a confirmed one-star hotel man. I get a quirky, self-satisfied thrill every time I snag a railroad narrow room with creaky wood floors, a wobbly chair and table rejected by a finer hotel back in 1963, a bare 20-watt bulb dangling on its wire from the ceiling, and a bathroom down the hall I have to share with the rest of the floor.

I downright revel in my thrift. I mentally lord it over people who can afford better hotels. In fact, I picture the poor saps shelling out three or four times as much for a room with TV and minibar in the three-star joint around the corner, and I think: suckers! Sure, they don’t have to put on pants and grab their keys every time they want to nip out to the bathroom, but I look at it this way: I could stay here for three or four nights at the price they're paying for one. (I say "could stay" because I can't; I've got to dash off to Modena tomorrow, Parma the day after that, then Milan...more than one night in a city is a luxury we working stiff travelers cannot afford.)

I stand there in my gloriously drab one-star room, stripped to my undies, smugly washing my clothes in the sink (even rooms without baths in Europe usually have a sink). As I round-robin my camera, Palm, laptop, and cellphone battery chargers though the single outlet available, I reflect on my wisdom for preferring one-star rooms—"wisdom" sounding so much better than the slightly more accurate term, "poverty". I am one who appreciates that a comfy bed is all one really needs from his lodgings; anything more is downright slothful. Or maybe avaricious. One of the Deadly Sins, at any rate.

So I am content with my view of the airshaft. I can tolerate the traffic noise filtering through the single pane of glass. I don't mind the lack of a phone that would allow me to go online—just a little intercom handset that connects only to the front desk (which is unmanned after midnight anyway). I can handle rough sheets on a sagging-spring cot.

But there are certain things at which I draw the line.

On reflection, it's a good thing I decided to keep reading the next chapter of my novel, when I really should have either (a) sat at the desk and caught up on entering my research into the computer, or (b) snapped off the 20-watt bulb and gone to bed early for once to try to catch up on sleep, which at this point in my whirlwind trip is becoming rather more important than typing up notes.

But, had I done either of those things, I wouldn't have been lying in bed with the lights on. Had I not been lying in bed with the lights on, I wouldn't have noticed, out of the corner of my eye, something moving against the white of the pillow.

It was a small brown bug. Well, such things happen. I was frankly surprised I hadn't had to go on an half-hour mosquito-killing rampage within the room this evening, as I have on so many prior occasions in a country where windows are left cracked open all day to air out the rooms. I flicked the bug off my pillow, and went back to my book.

Then, my eye caught another movement. It was another bug. This one was inching along the white bulge where I had thrown the sheets back, right up next to the wall, so I squished it against the plaster. It became a smear of bright red blood, like when you smack an engorged mosquito. Eew. Two bugs got me a bit nervous, so I put my book face down and lifted the covers.

Sure enough, there was another bug. I flicked it towards the edge of the bed, but it somehow managed to land right back on the sheet. I flicked it again. Same thing. I was inadvertently working the thing up towards my pillow, my disgust briefly overshadowed by amazement that the bug kept zipping back onto the bed every time I flicked it off into space, as if the white sheet were some kind of insect magnet. Finally, frustrated, I just pinched the thing. More bright red blood. By now, my hand was next to my pillow. Suddenly, I shuddered. I scooted my butt to the edge of the bed, then lifted the pillow.

Underneath were about six of the little brown bugs.

I leapt from the cot, doing a little frantic jig and rapidly burshing my arms, legs, shoulders, and torse down with my hands. What the hell was this? The Third World? The Middle Ages? How does a hotel in Europe get bedbugs in this day and age?

I didn't ponder such things for long. I was too busy stuffing my charging cords back into their case, collecting my laundry from the line I had strung out the window, gathering up my scattered books and papers, and jamming it all into my suitcase. I scooped up my shoulder bag, heaved the heavy suitcase, and stealthily made my way downstairs.

Why the stealth? Not sure. I think I was afraid I would get caught and forced to remain.

At the bottom of the stairs, separating the reception desk from the room access and front entrance, there was a metal accordion grate like at a shop. I had already scribbled a note in Italian: "That bed was full of insects. I am not staying!" I spindled the note and shoved it through the ring on my room keys, tossed it through the grate to land on the floor, and quietly let myself out the front door.

Where did I go? Why, to the three-star hotel around the corner, of course. The young guy who eventually arrived at the check in desk to buzz me in, blinking 1:30am sleep from his eyes, said they were all out of single, but he could give me a big room at a reduced rate. As I handed over my passport, I apologized for the late hour and explained what had happened. He looked up from the check-in form, horrified.

"But, where were you staying?" The Al Giaciglio, I told him. He shuddered and made a face like someone had fed him awful medicine. "Ah! Al Giaciglio. That place..." He trailed off, shaking his head as if to rid it of the foul name he had just uttered. "You didn't pay already, I hope." No, I told him. "Bravo," he congratulated me.

As he handed me the keys and a remote control for the TV, I got a case of the flailing arm willies that shimmy shook me from head to toe. "Sorry," I said. "I just... It's like I can feel them all over me."

He nodded, knowingly. Then, with concern: "You want a drink or something?"

Although I took a 20-minute shower, scrubbing myself all over repeatedly, I still keep feeling them: little tickles on my ankles, my shoulders, my back, my forehead, my neck. I keep compulsively brushing myself off every time a hair on my leg or arm moves. The early evening mosquito bites on my face and neck that had stopped bothering me hours ago are once again tingling, causing me to swipe at nothing.

So here I sit, in a wonderfully bland room in the Hotel Minerva, next door to Ravenna's train station. My laundry is hung all over the room to dry. The TV over on the table is keeping me silent company. My electronics are all snuggled into their outlets in the various corners of the large room, and I am about to use the phone line to go online and post this tale.

Oh, sure, I appreciate all these amenities and conveniences, and the neat lines of the otherwise indifferent modular furnishings actually help convey a sense of supreme cleanliness, for which, at the moment, I am supremely grateful. Still, I'm paying more than twice as much—and damned happy to do so—as I would have had I not snuck away from Al Giaciglio and its bedbugs in the middle of the night.

Despite tonight's adventure, I remain a one-star hotel man at heart—in fact, tomorrow night I'll be bedding down in Modena's youth hostel. But you can be darned sure that next time, before I agree to take a room, I'll be checking under the pillows first.

Bologna the Fat

They call this place "Bologna the Fat." And for good reason.

Every Italian region is justifiably proud of its own cuisine—considers it in fact to be the best in the whole world. But ask any Italian to name just one region, one region in all of Italy, that's known above all for its culinary prowess and he'll admit: it's Emilia-Romagna.

In Modena they make the world's best balsamic vinegar; in Parma the best aged sheep's cheese (parmigiano) and cured ham (prosciutto di Parma). And the regional capital? Ah, you must mean Bologna the Fat.

Bologna is the birthplace of tortellini—little rings of pasta stuffed with savory meats and gooey cheeses. This is the land that invented the ragu sauce atop tagliatelle alla Bolognese. The local cured meat named mortadella remains so wildly popular the world over (particularly in school lunches) that most culture call it simply "bologna"—or, if you prefer, "baloney."

Life in Bologna centers around the kitchen. These people just love to eat—and eat well. To get under the skin of this city, forget making the rounds of the churches, museums, and monuments. Instead take a morning to explore the gastronomic side of Bologna: its street markets, wine bars, fourth generation grocers, traditional pasta makers, and storied chocolatiers. Start early, around 8am, to mingle with the market workers, professional trattoria chefs, and home-kitchen master chefs out doing their morning shopping.

Begin three blocks east of Piazza Maggiore, just off Via Castiglione at Paolo Atti & Figli (Via Caprarie 7, 051-220-425, www.paoloatti.com), purveyors of Bologna's finest baked goods since 1880. Under high frescoed ceilings, crisply aproned saleswomen bustle about arranging fresh pillows of pasta into rows in the glass display cases. The signs at each tray of pasta translate as, "Classic ravioli—we put our art into it!" And, "We make our tortellini one at a time." Flower dusted women, their forearms burly from decades of kneading, come puffing out of the back room shouldering enormous trays stacked with steaming loaves of bread.

Down the block, the corner of Via Drapperie is marked by stacks of salami and pendulums of prosciutto in the old-school "supermarket" of A. F. Tamburini (Via Caprarie 1, 051-234-726, www.tamburini.com). Though it's too early to be thinking about lunch, keep this place in mind for another day, as it makes for a great cheap meal stop. In the back of the shop—past the glass displays of cured meats, aged cheeses, and fresh yellow pastas—there is an always crowded tavola calda section, an Italian cafeteria serving filling portions of prepared pasta dishes and roast meats for €3.50 to €5.50.

Turn left onto Via Drapperie to enter Bologna's main street market. On your left you'll see another Paolo Atti outlet, and across the street is the Drogheria Gilberto (Via Drapperie 5, 051-223-925), its entrance marked by a suit of armor grasping a bottle of the family's wine. Pietro opened the joint in 1905, followed by his son Oreste. Now it's in the hands of the third generation, Gilberto and Elisabetta, and their sons Danilo and Michele, the quartet selling chocolates, candies, liqueurs, marmalades, and preserves (both sweet and savory) from shelves stacked almost to the 15-foot ceilings. There's always a free sample of some lying around; last visit, I scored brownies.

From here, the market beings in earnest. Fruit and vegetable stalls groan under the weight of purple-fringed artichokes, crinkly bunches of arugola, sleek indigo eggplant, pink pomegranates, orange zucchini flowers, pungent mushrooms, tiny susine plums, pointy San Marzano tomatoes, mounds of grapes, trays of chestnuts, garlands of fiery red pepperoncini, and ropes of garlic.

Where Via Drapperie meets Via delle Pescherie Vecchie are a pair of fishmongers always mobbed by bolognesi waiting patiently on the water-slicked cobblestones, numbered tickets clutched in their hands, admiring the Styrofoam trays of squid, scampi, octopi, anchovies, every type of fish, and live—if terribly cold—lobster wiggling their feelers feebly and mazzancolle (a kind of giant Adriatic scrimp) scuttling their little yellow legs en masse whenever someone's knees bump their tray.

Turn right up Via delle Pescherie Vecchie. At no. 7B is a typical butcher ship, but look at the name above the door: Macelleria Equina. Yep. The bolognesi do love their horsemeat (though, unlike their brethren in the Veneto, they don't usually go in for the gammier, stringier donkey).

Just beyond the next fruit stand, turn left into the Mercato Clavature. This covered market is looking a bit down at the heels these days. Signs taped to the walls proclaim that renovations are underway. "Ha!" says Signora Mazzetti, who runs the drogerhia (dry goods stall) and is vice president of the market workers association. "They've been saying that since 1995!"

The stated plan has always been to take out some of the central stalls and install a café—but the building's owners have instead slowly let the place run down as, one by one, tenants move out. Of the 20 shops and stalls available, only seven are currently going concerns—and those seven must cover the same total rent that was once split 20 ways. "We 'insects'," says Signora Mazzetti. "We can't go to the comune [town hall] ourselves to get some action. We must wait for the owners to do something." She clearly deplores the condition of her market, but is desperate that it survive and return to its former glory.

More than half-empty, and dimly lit by an outdated electrical system, Clavature does look a bit dire at the moment. "We want a market with life," says Mazzetti. "But the owners..." she trails off with a defeated-but-defiant shrug of her lower lip. It's out of her hands and mired in the bureaucracy; there's nothing she can do but hang on. Just inside the market entrance, a gypsy woman in colorful rags with a babe in arms pulls faces of exaggerated suffering, begging from passersby.

Backtracking to continue down Via delle Pescherie Vecchie, you'll pass lots more fruit and veg stands, and, at no. 3C, an herbalist—Italians are mad for homeopathy and herbal remedies; but just peek in get an idea of what a commercialized one looks like, as we'll be visiting a real, artiginal herbalist in a bit.

At no. 3A hangs the sign for La Baita Formaggi, another traditional deli with an excellent selection of cheeses—eight types of mozzarella, six kinds of ricotta, and (count 'em) 21 different varieties of pecorino—in addition to the usual mortadella, salami, and both kinds of prosciutto (the world-famous prosciutto di Parma, selling at €26.90 per kilo, and the even pricier, gourmet-beloved prosciutto di San Daniele, from up in the Friuli mountains, going for €31 per kilo.)

When you hit the main square, turn left down Via dell'Archiginnasio, an arcaded shopping street stretching along the left flank of the cathedral. By now, you're probably ravenous. Wanna spoil that appetite? Pop into the grand doorway at Piazza Galvani 1 and head upstairs for a peek at the flayed statues and the marble dissecting slab for human corpses in the Teatro Anatomico (see box "Europe's Oldest University").

At the corner with Via Farini sits the chic Caffé Zanarini, a sleek, modern bar where besuited and bespoke shoppers from the high-end Cavour shopping gallery next door, and students from up the block, mingle over superior espresso, sublime pastries, and platters of free crostini and teensy sandwiches.

Turn right onto Via Farini, which becomes Via Carbonesi. At no. 5, step into the divinely scented shop of Majani, chocolatiers extraordinaire since 1796 (051-656-2209, www.majani.com). About €4.50 will buy you a sampler baggie filled with their greatest hits—one each of the chocolate "tortellini" (in milk, dark, and white, each filled with a chocolate cream), a selection of the famous cremini Fiat napoleons, and a few scroza (thin sheets of dark chocolate, roughly accordioned up into a bar).

Across the street sits the Bolognese outlet for Il Regno Vegetale (Via Carbonesi 10A, 051-263-792, www.regnovegetale.com), a minuscule "reign" for 51-year old Orazio Martini and his rigorously traditional practice of the ancient art of herbalism. "We only use natural plants and herbs in our medicines and cosmetics," he declares proudly. "No chemicals—as in 90% of the 'herbalist' medicines you see today. And we sell exclusively our own products," Martini continues. "Not some multinational pharmaceutical corporation's version of herbal medicines that's made mostly of chemicals."

You could say Maestro Martini has a chip on his shoulder, but he is an artisan living in a world of mass production, so it's hard to fault the guy. He eagerly shows the engraving of a medieval monastic herbalist printed on his shop's fliers. "You see? We make our products the same as they did in the Middle Ages." He frowns. "Well, almost the same. Now we use machines to press it into pills"—he levers his forearms until his cupped hands press together in demonstration—"We use technology to help. But the ingredients, they are all natural...so there are no side effects!"

Orazio says he has always been intrigued by plants. When he was about 20 years old, it hit him. "Like a bolt of lightning!" He says, wide-eyed. "I knew, all of a sudden: 'I have to be an herbalist'—but in the old style. So I studied for a few years, and I learned about it, and now I've been making my cures and cosmetics for 23 years." His diligence and devotion to tradition has paid off. In 1999, the University of Pavia declared his anti-wrinkle cream to be the best on the market. "And," Orazio Maritni finishes with a flourish. "It’s made with exclusively natural ingredients!" His eyes glow with triumph.

Turn right up Via de' Gombruti, then sidestep left on Via Porta Nova to visit the Stregate Tea Shop at no. 7A (051-222-564, www.stregate.it), its air scented with more than 160 varieties of tea piled into numbered crocks on the shelves. I know: you're thinking: Tea isn't Italian! Well, they got coffee—espresso and cappuccino alike—from the Turks, pasta from the Chinese, wine from the Greeks, and tomato sauce from the Native Americans, so what, really, is Italian cuisine if not borrowed? And besides: this shop smells incredible.

Continue north up Via A. Tostoni. At no. 9A, La Braseria Sfoglia, you can peek past the sales counter into the back room to see bologna's famed sfoglini rolling out fresh pasta in great sheets then cutting it into strips using rolling pins set with rows of plastic discs. Some strips are cut narrow, destined to be coiled into bird's nests of tagliatelle, tagliolini, fettucini, and other noodles. Other strips are kept broad then cross-cut into squares, each of which will receive a dollop of filling then be deftly folded into those little winged pasta-pocket rings we call tortellini.

Turn left onto Via Ugo Bassi, then left again onto Via G. Marconi to pop into the church of San Francesco—those impressive and intricate tombs-on-stilts by the roadside just south of the main entrance belong to several 13th century law professors from the university (boy, they treated profs right back in those days). Behind the church's high altar inside sits an incredible, massive marble altarpiece sculpted in 1388-92 and bristling with saints in niches, martyrs standing on balconies, all topped by a comb-tooth row of lithe pinnacles. OK, so it's not culinary, but few tourists bother coming into this church, so you can have it all to yourself.

On the north side of the piazza begins the narrow, arcaded Via Pratello. It doesn't look like much at this time of day—though you should definitely grab some lunch at Trattoria Fantoni while you're here (see Dining), or, if you want something lighter, at any of the numerous take-away pizza shops or kebab shacks. But after dark, this street transforms into one of the hoppingest scenes in Bologna. It comes alive with trattorie, pubs, osterie, and wine bars. To whit: a pleading homemade sign scrawled onto a sheet hangs from one window: "Your right to party ends where my right to sleep begins."

Return back east along Via Ugo Bassi. In the second block, on the left just after a little food shop, is the blink-and-you'll-miss-it entrance to the Mercato delle Erbe. This covered market houses 36 specialty food shops and 72 fruit and vegetable stands—much more of a going concern than the Mercato Clavature, though make sure you get here before they close up shop for the lunch break around 1pm. Exit the market on the back side, onto Via Belvedere. Free of those bland modern structures that have grown up around the Via Ugo Bassi entrance, this 1910 temple of gastronomy can only be appreciated in all its orange and yellow Neoclassical grandeur from the back side.

Just across the street from the market's back steps, at Via Belvedere 7B, is Le Sflogline, another traditional sfoglini shop run by a trio of smiling ladies who spend their days making fresh pasta, pastries, and simple lasagne in tiny take-away foil containers.

Ok. This is Italy. All the fine food in the world is worthless if there isn't a fine wine with which to wash it down. Continue wending your way east and north to Via Marsala and the Enoteca Italiana (Via Marsala 2B, 051-235-989, www.enotecaitaliana.it). If it weren't for the crowds, you'd never suspect that this blandly modern wine shop with its crooked, cheaply varnished bar and racks of bottles in the back has won Il Sommalier magazine's "Oscar dei Vini" as the best wine bar in all of Italy in 2000 and again in 2002.

Once more, pinstriped suits an silk dresses mix freely with the tatty sweaters, leather jackets, and untucked shirttails of students—but everyone here is a genuine wine aficionado, debating the merits of a Tuscan Sangiovese/Merlot/Cab mix as compared to a Bordeaux cru (though the vast majority of the 35 fine wines available by the glass are Italian, not French). Elbow yourself a spot at the chipped bar, place your in the capable hands of the barrista, and ask for a plate of bread, salami, and mortadella to fortify yourself for an evening sampling some of the greatest wines Italy has to offer.

Bologna the Fat, indeed.

Up the Blue Grotto without a Paddle...or a Boat

It's the seventh wave that'll get you.

Oceans and seas across the world all craft waves the same way. They come in a simple sequence: each wave is larger and more powerful than the last. This sequence builds in a set cycle: the number of waves in each cycle is seven.

And it's the seventh wave that'll get you.

I've been counting waves for a good ten minutes now, and my arms are aching from hanging off the precipice so long, peering into the darkness of the tunnel. Is it my imagination, or is the sea getting rougher? I know the sun is getting lower and lower, and I can't hang around forever—nor, for that matter, can I hang on all that much longer, physically.

I can't figure out whether I'm psyching myself up or psyching myself out, but there is one thing the tiny rational portion of my brain is sure of: this is easily the stupidest thing I've done in quite a while. It's even stupider than two weeks ago, when I followed a goat path several hundred feet above the Grand Canyon floor past the point where even the mountain sheep were looking at me as if to say "Uh, dude? Even we don't try to go that way."

And to think, the emergency €20 bill folded up in my zippered pocket could have bought me the easy way into the Blue Grotto.

When most people arrive at the mouth of the Grotta Azzurra for the first time, few actually realize they're at the entrance to the world famous Blue Grotto of Capri. They're expecting to motor into a vast sea cave filled with unearthly blue light. Instead, the boat that brought them around the island from Marina Grande (€8.50) has stopped dead in the water, in the shadows of a high rock cliff, and is being swarmed by tiny rowboats. The tourists are then divided into small groups and genially forced overboard to clamber into one of the rowboats bobbing in the waves, where they are told they have fork over another €8.50 per person to the oarsman.

Each rowboat, loaded down with fleeced tourists, starts pulling toward a tiny gap in the cliff where the rocks meets the crashing water. Just to the left of this gap, a thin metal chain is anchored into the rock. The chain runs, horizontal to the water, into a dark hole no more than three or four feet high. As each wave crashes against the cliff and is funneled through the hole, the open space between the surface of the water and the ceiling of the dark tunnel shrinks to under three feet. Then, with the next wave, two feet. Then one foot.

When the seventh wave hits, the water claps together, spurts back out from the top of the tunnel, and the hole disappears completely.

At this point, the tourists in the rowboat look at one other nervously. If they knew that a trip to the Blue Grotto was going to entail threading such a dangerous needle in a frail little rowboat, they probably would have stayed back in Capri Town and spent that €17 on gelato and cappuccino.

As it is, the sequence of waves cycles back down, the tunnel reappears, and suddenly a series of rowboats comes shooting out of the hole, each oarsman leaning way back--almost flat on his back--and hauling on that chain to pull his boat through quickly. As soon as the hole is clear, the boats waiting outside paddle quickly up to the entrance. The oarsman in each grabs the chain, and shouts to his little clump of tourists, "Please to lie down flat on you backs so you don' bump-a you head." And with no further warning, he begins hauling on the chain, sweeping the boat through into the dark tunnel.

At least, that's how I assume it still works. I haven't actually been inside the Blue Grotto for years. I did it with my parents back when I was 11 or so, and again 12 years ago when I came to Capri with a group of friends. It was fun, it was neat, and I saw no particular reason to waste another $20-plus on it again—especially as you have to tip heavily in order to stop the oarsman from singing (poorly) Neapolitan folks songs while you're in there for the whopping two-minute audience that each rowboat is granted.

That's why I'm here now, clinging to two convenient handholds in the algae-slicked limestone, my bare feet balanced on a shelf of rock just under the water, leaning out to peer into the Blue Grotto's dark entrance, counting waves.

It's around 5pm, but that's just a guess. I left Villa Eva some time around 4:30 for the half-hour walk to the Blue Grotto, and I left everything, including my time-telling cellphone, back at the hotel. All I brought was a towel, which I left back up the path piled atop my shirt and shoes, into one of which I stuck a business card (to help identify the body—see? I'm a responsible guy). It's early October, the very tail end of the tourist season, so the rowboats have knocked off early for the day, and the entrance to the Blue Grotto is empty. Empty and quiet—except for the crashing of waves.

There's no one else around, which makes it that much spookier to be leaning out over the pitch-black mouth of a sea cavern. The solitude also makes it seem that much more bone-headed of an idea to think I can swim into the grotto, especially with such a strong current sucking in and out—I can feel it against my calves—and with every seventh wave swallowing the tunnel whole.

The main problem is that I'm on the right side of the tunnel, and that anchored chain is over on the left. It can't be more than five or six feet from where I'm balancing on the underwater rock ledge, but there's the whole sucking current/crashing waves thing going on within those five feet. I'm wary of trying to shuffle across on the bit of rock ledge, as once I were to leave the safety of the wall I would have nothing to hold onto, plus I know from past experience that black sea urchins nestle into the rocks of Capri just below the waterline, and that their five-inch spines can pierce right through your foot and come out the other side.

Distracted, it suddenly registers with me that the last set of waves nearly kissed the top of the tunnel, so I brace myself for that seventh wave, which sure enough comes along and swells the green water up to my chest. First it tries to force me toward the tunnel, then—after the splashback of water closing off the tunnel washes over my head, it changes its mind and tries to drag me away towards the sea.

Shaking water from my eyes, I suddenly gasp and let go of my left handhold, a piercing pain throbbing in my pinkie. I look into the hole where my hand just was, and see a mottled dark green crab with thick yellow hairs on his legs is waving an outsized pincer claw at me as if to say, "Go ahead! What are you wating for? Just you try to stick your hand back in my hole, buddy, I've got plenty more where that came from!" I hiss at him, and yell at him, and puff my cheeks to blow on him as hard as I can, and otherwise try to get the bugger to budge. He just fixes me with those beady, dead black eyes and waves that claw menacingly, refusing to back down. Grumbling, I find another, far less stable handheld, and turn back to the tunnel to start counting the waves again.

'OK, was that wave two or three of the new cycle?' I think to myself. Then, cross at the crab, and at myself for being so damn analytical about the whole thing, I say out loud "Ah, the Hell with it," and, during a trough between waves, launch myself through the air towards that chain on the other side of the tunnel.

It isn't until I'm about halfway across, a new wave surging up behind me and my fingers reaching toward that dangling chain, that the thought passes through my mind: 'I wonder if there are any sea urchins where I'm about to land?'

I splash into the water, my left hand closing about the chain, the forearm slamming into the rock behind it. As I vaguely register with relief that no urchin spines seem to be piercing my body, the incoming wave sweeps me along and helps carry me into the tunnel, the chain slipping rapidly through my palm.

Funny thing is, once I get inside, it's all much easier. I haul myself all the way through the tunnel and into the grotto itself, which starts to take dark, shadowy shape above and before me. I avoid looking back toward the bright entrance so as to better let my eyes adjust. I still can't see the far walls, but I can hear the scattershot echoes of the water splashing against them, under the constant, cycling roar of incoming waves, their sound amplified by the tunnel.

Ten feet or so in, the chain swoops up, away from the water, to anchor somewhere into the rock at much higher level, so I can no go no further and still use it as a lifeline. I tread water, clinging to the chain that's now a good arm's length above my head, and let my eyes continue to adjust to the darkness. I can begin to make out the pale stone of the ceiling soaring away from me and the walls widening to each side. The water, though—that famous glowing azure water—is dark. It's blue alright, but a shade of blue just shy of black.

Damn. I tarried too long. The sun's too low in the sky. The effect of the Blue Grotto has been turned off for the night. All that silly fear and senseless bravado for nothing.

Well, might as well get a little swim out of it. The current that was so concentrated by the narrow tunnel isn't nearly as strong even this short distance inside, so I steel my fears and let go of the chain to paddle a few feet further into the cave. Just so I can gauge how strong the current really is, I turn to look at the only fixed point of reference I know of, the tunnel entrance.

Which is when the true extent of my own idiocy finally hits me.

The famous glowing effect of the Blue Grotto is created by the daylight from outside refracting through the entrance tunnel and filtering through the limpid water. That is to say, you cannot see it if you're staring toward the cave-dark of the back walls. You gave to be looking towards the entrance.

As soon as I turned around, I realized I was swimming in liquid lapis lazuli. My arms and legs were windmilling around a field of pale blue so intense it looked fake, like the light from a neon sign. The effect was so shocking, it actually made my jaw drop (didn't know that jaw-dropping happened for real; though it was just a metaphor), whereupon, of course, I started shipping water down my throat. Once I get the coughing and sputtering out of the way, I scramble to unzip my pant's pocket and yank out the waterproof camera I had bought earlier in the day, and started snapping a few giddy photographs.

The waves and current weren't strong, but they were definitely present and persistent. After so much time spent hanging around at the entrance, and all that adrenaline wasted on worrying and getting myself in here, I realized my out of shape bod wasn't going to permit me to swim about and fight the pull of the sea for too much longer. Besides, the eerie, intense, impenetrable blueness all around my pale, flailing limbs was starting to creep me out.

Unbidden, the words "Monster of the Blue Grotto" floated into my mind—a local legend I managed to conjure up, just now, out of thin air as I treaded the glowing water, spooked by being alone in this sea-filled cavern. I could almost feel my invented monster grabbing my ankles and jerking me under the water. All they would find would be a shirt, towel, and shoes with some travel writer's business card in them. Silly, I know, but YOU try putting that sort of thing out of your mind when you're swimming around a giant, echoing, sea cave all by yourself, a place as sinister and dark above the water as it is bizarrely opaque and bright below.

I paddled back over to the point where I could lunge up and grab the chain again, and that helped calm me down a bit. I took a few more pictures, then treaded water, hanging off the chain, facing the tunnel, and started counting the waves again.

The seventh wave came. It filled the entire tunnel, blocking the air and the light, and then rolled over my head, raising me higher than the chain for a moment. When the tunnel reappeared and the water level fell to a deep trough, I started hauling myself along the chain, through the tunnel and toward the setting sun.

I passed the territorial crab, who set to waving his claw again when he saw me, and scrambled over the rocks to the little rowboat landing platform at the trail's end. As I hauled myself up to the platform's railing, I scared the hell out of a young French mother and her little blonde girl, who were leaning over to peer towards the tunnel entrance. They stepped back to let me slither up and over the rail, and I stood there, dripping and grinning like a maniac.

"Ehh… Bloou Gra-TOH?" The woman asked, hesitantly. Yes, I replied, wiping water off my face, this is the Blue Grotto. "The boats?…" She asked, and I explained that they left around 4pm. "No boats?" She asked again, seeking confirmation.

"No," I replied. "No boats." Then I smiled mischievously. "But you can swim in!"

She laughed a bit nervously, and stammered something about how the water was probably too cold. I was already bouncing up the trail toward my towel and little pile of clothes. No, I called back, the water was really just right.

Useful Tools

• The fine art of packing light (a.k.a.: always know where your towel is)

Outside Links

• Capri Tourism
  
• Hotel Villa Eva