The second part of the trip moved back north, eventually to Rome. We stayed at the Excelsior on the via V. Veneto, the grandest hotel I had ever stayed in to that date. I really love elegant old hotels...'if these walls could talk'. We did and saw all the usual, over four days. These are some of my personal memories.
In the lobby of the Excelsior, every morning the man would clean the glass revolving doors. The flower arrangers would build new table arrangements five feet tall. The newspapers would be hung on their rods in place on racks. The cut crystal must have been hand-polished during the night, it gleamed and shimmered in the early morning. Just a wonderland.
The breakfast room at the Excelsior was all white linen, on two levels, with the upper level looking down on the immense buffet. A white-hatted chef carved the leg of prosciutto to order while I tried to decide how to limit what I would choose from the fresh fruits and pastries.
And then there was lunch in that room, all by myself. The Tour had a limited number of tickets for an audience with the Pope, so I, the protesting Episcopalian, gave mine up to a Roman Catholic member of the Tour. I stayed...what a sacrifice...to have a splendorous lunch alone, to write in my journal, and to just feel like Mrs. Astor's pet horse.
Bernini's Baldacchino in St. Peter's never fails to strike me with awe. The canopy is so very high, and the whole thing seems impossibly delicate. The sight of it towering over all on those spiraling columns is so improbably. It is over-the-top Baroque, regal and of the Ages and is one of my favorite things in Rome.
We came around a corner in the Tour bus, and everyone let out a sigh. The bus driver pulled over so we could get out and take pictures. The fog was not a shroud, so this picture was possible. This is one of my most enduring memories of Italy...seeing Assisi for the first time.
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