The power of Patagonia

From penguins to cowboys and glaciers to waterfalls, South America's Patagonia is a wilderness for the adventurer and luxury traveler alike.

Perito Moreno glacier 

Check out the blog I researched for Hosted Villas published in A Luxury Blog on things not to miss in the region - article link

A view of part of Argentina's lakes region from Barilouche

Trekking in El Chaletn 

Colorful rock formations around Los Antiguos

Misnomers and local art in Argentina

Inspired by Bernini's Four Rivers Fountain, one of the main attractions on my city highlights walking tour in Rome, I've always longed to visit the Rio della Plata. Bernini's depiction of South America's great river features a river god covered in silver coins aside what is suppose to be an armadillo but appears to be more like a sea dragon.  Nevertheless, the river and all its immigration history and as the birthplace of the exotic tango was one of the first places I wanted to visit in Buenos Aires.

However, it is nowhere to be found in Buenos Aires. While it is in the hearts of all the portenos, it is not in the heart of the city. There is only one park from where the river is visible, the Reserva Ecologica Costanera Sur, a true paradise for nature lovers with over 200 different species of birds and a nice bike path (and no armadillos). We failed several attempts to see this park.  The first time it was closed for political strikes the day before the presidential election. The second time it was closed because it had rained the day prior. And finally, the third attempt was its weekly day of closure, Monday.

At the turn of the 20th century the river welcomed 4 million immigrants, 2 million of which were from Italy.  One of whom was my grandfather who later settled in New York. Another one of these immigrant's was a distant relative of my husband who we had the pleasure of meeting and who provided us with the great fortune of finding the Rio della Plata. This required traveling outside the city for a much needed breath of fresh air; because despite its name Buenos Aires does not have a lot of buen aria.

At the Paseo de la Costa de Vicente Lopez I discovered the Rio della Plata is hardly a river. With a width of about 140 miles, many geographers consider it a marginal sea. Secondly, it is hardly silver.  It's minerals reflect a marshy brown color, making Rome's "yellow" Tiber seem like crystal.

View of Rio della Plata from Paseo della Costa Vicente Lopez

While I was disappointed the river was inapproiately named, the riverfront showcased a work of art that became very personal to me. Our distant relative was a sculptor and his masterpieces we found in several parks on both the Rio della Plata and Rio Parana. These works of art, not the river itself, were the true testimony.  They were the true reflections of the ideas and creativity from abroad that made Buenos Aires and its European flair.

Statue of navigator Vito Dumas by local artist Adriano Berna 

 

Statue by Adriano Berna dedicated to rowers, in front of a rowing club on the Rio Parana in Tigre

If you are in Buenos Aires, it is worth of trip to Tigre, approximately an hour by train. If not to see Adriano Berna's masterpieces, then to explore the city's bustling daily market.

For a deeper understanding of Buenos Aires' immigration history, visit the Immigration Museum located near Puerto Madero. The museum was converted from a hotel that housed 40 percent of the immigrants upon arrival. The museum and its records are in informative, but it is the venue itself that is most evocative. The lodge held 4,000 people at a time for a period of 5 days as each immigrant was provided their first roof and meal awaiting passage into a new life.

Water supply in Buenos Aires

If you are interested in engineering, visit the Palace of Flowing Waters also known as the Water Company Palace, the next time you are in Buenos Aires.



Interior of the water works museum of the Water Company Palace, with pipes and tanks that held 72,000 tons of water for over 6 million people that lived in Buenos Aires in the 1920's.

At the turn of the 20th Century, the Argentinian government was taking inspiration from the ancient Etruscans on how to provide sanitary water and sewage services for a city that became home to the over 3 million immigrants arriving in Buenos Aires between 1890 and 1910.

Sewage pump of the "cloaca maxima" in the water works museum of Buenos Aires

Inside the palace on display are imported water closets, urinals, bidets, and vintage faucets as well as water pumps and cisterns.  The largest sewage pump system in the water facility was named after my favorite site in the Rome (a highlight on my Birth of Rome walking tour) , the Cloaca Maxima, western civilization's first advanced sewage system, invented and built by the Etruscan king L. Tarquinius Priscus.

The palace itself is a work of art, a display of French renaissance style and once covered in hundreds of thousands of glazed terra cota tiles that are now on display in the water works museum, located in the former water pumping station facility of the palace.



Exterior of the Water Company Palace, an architectural masterpiece of the late 19th Century.

The Vatican's Quest to preserve its Saints and Popes

In an exclusive interview with the last surviving member of the most prestigious medical team in the Vatican I learned about the Vatican's commitment and effort to modernize embalming techniques in order to preserve the Catholic Church's most sacred body parts and bodies. 

Now retired and nearing the age of 90 years old, this woman shared her story with an exceptional alertness.  As a medical surgeon her job was to examine the internal organs of recently deceased Popes and prepare them for burial.  She also treated over 30 bodies and various bodily relics during her career, some dating as far back as the 3rd Century.

In her living room on a Sunday afternoon, wearing a pink wool sweater and pearls and serving me cream puffs, she showed me before and after photographs of bodies from the 13th Century that she recreated from a pile of bones.

Her work is in the spotlight recently as she mummified the body of Pope John XXIII, who will soon be recognized as a saint in addition to Pope John Paul II in a ceremony to be conducted by Pope Francis in April.

Check out the full story in The New York Post- Article Link

Love and Irony in Umbria

 All my life I have been searching for…irony.  I have been searching for love too, but irony has been harder to find.  Love is subjective and varying and fortunately I find it everywhere. For example, I love my parents, I love the man I am about to marry, and I love thin-crust pizza. Irony on the other hand has a clear, succinct and often misunderstood definition. Alanis Morissette in her 1990’s pop hit had it all wrong. When you have 10,000 spoons and all you need is a knife, that is just a major inconvenience. True irony, the kind I have been looking for, requires an unpredicted twist in order to arrive at an outcome contrary to what was expected.   On my recent trip to Umbria for the purpose of wedding dress shopping, I experienced both love and irony.  

I thought perhaps the fact I was getting married in the first place, arriving at pure uncomplicated romantic love after years of dating mockery, was ironic. It’s actually better defined as unexpected. Then I thought that the difficulty of finding a wedding dress in the fashion capital of the world was ironic, but then I realized with Italy’s customer service reputation that was to be....expected. 

One experience dress shopping involved the type of confrontation you consistently find on one of Rome’s public buses. It began with the saleswoman giving me attitude because I didn’t know how to match my gown with the hall where I will be getting married.  After trying on 3 dresses my friend and I were nearly kicked out of the store for “wasting their time” and for speaking our native language to each other while they rushed out to calm their nerves with a cigarette.

Then came an unanticipated email attachment from my father. He thoughtfully often clips stories out of the Buffalo News for me he thinks I will enjoy. Typically these stories involve someone I have met once on one of my tours that has joined the Canisius alumni association. Or the occasional news story about the Pope.  But this story made a big difference.  It was an article about a monastery in Umbria that offers wedding dresses.  The monastery is dedicated to St. Rita, the patron saint of brides and lost causes.  It was indeed starting to seem that finding an appropriate and affordable wedding dress in Italy was a lost cause.   Privileged and faithful women began donating their dresses to the St. Rita monastery as an offering for the blessing of their wedding day.  One opportunistic member of the convent, who was formerly a professional seamstress, was able to fix these dresses up and prepare them for new brides. In exchange for a donation.  Like a second-hand dress with a newfangled blessing.

My girlfriends didn’t hesitate to take me on this voyage to Cascia, about 3 hours from Rome, if for no other reason than to enjoy the view of the Apennines and taste Umbria’s delightful cuisine.  

We stopped for lunch in a charming family owned restaurant. It was called, “The Fireplace” but strangely the walls were painted mint green and so the last thing the interior evoked was a warm and crackling fire.  That misnomer could be considered ironic, but it does not compare to the irony I would experience later.

We ate a plate of cured meats typical from the nearby town of Norcia, and pasta with saffron that is abundant in the region. We then burned the calories straight away on the flight of 100 steps to arrive at the monastery at the top of the hill.

The shared camaraderie of the meal and the drive together felt well worth the trip. I didn’t know what to expect up there. I was sweating not only because of the climb, but because of my nerves.  My fondest memories of nuns prior to this experience was from when I was very young and attending Catholic school. The nun threatened to put her toe in my mouth if I didn’t stop sucking my thumb.  Shortly thereafter I switched to public school. 

It was time for the appointment.  We arrived and a big wooden door opened to a medieval stone staircase.  We were greeted by one elderly sister that resembled Sophia from the Golden Girls.  She pinched my butt and joked there were no dresses for my friend as she looked up at her towering nearly 2 feet taller.

Then we met Sister Maria Laura.  She was modest yet liberal, keeping me covered at all times but commenting on sexiness factors of the dresses.  My friends sat on a swing set decorated with plastic

red roses while she dedicated the next 2 hours to me and the perfect dress.  When I told her I preferred something with more flow, she scurried in the back, among hundreds of dresses, to find something to match that description. She did it again when I’d ask for something of a different shade, or with a different shaped top.  She found a dress of every kind. Even a blue dress. Every dress I tried she strived diligently with a smile to make it work for me, removing inner padding, adding accessories, tailoring the neckline, and adjusting rear fastenings. 

I felt so much love and joy in that room I nearly left with a habit instead of a gown. I truly feel that thanks to her grace and intervention, a miracle really did occur.  I resolved the lost cause of finding a dress. More importantly, I felt so much kind affection from the experience thanks to her patience, support, and sense of humor that I have been forever touched with a new kind of adoration. I’ve converted and adjusted my critical ideas of the Catholic Church and role of women within it.  The irony? I may not need the wedding dress after all if I decide to join the convent of St. Rita in Cascia.