Friday, July 6, 2012

21. The Other End of the Road


Wednesday, July 4
Early Morning
Florence Peretola Airport

Last night didn't white work out as planned and I'm glad for it. Bruce called around 7:30 to say that they had to have a mandatory dinner with the students and so had to call off getting together. While it would have been nice to do that, I really do prefer to have final nights in Florence to myself.

After a call to Bridget, I headed out for another night of enjoying the Florentine night. The monuments were all lit up and the streets were filled. Just off the Piazza Della Repubblica I ran into a large crowd. They were watching the same street performer I had seen on this block seven years ago. I walked toward the Duomo then down through Piazza di Signoria, through the Uffizi, over the Ponte Vecchio then back to my room. Given the sadness I always feel at leaving, I was doubly glad not to spend the evening with others.

I'm now sitting in the airport awaiting my flight to Zurich then Chicago. Assuming all goes according to Hoyle, I'll be back in Chicago and, more to the point, with Bridget in about 12 hours.

Here's hoping that time passes quickly.


Late Afternoon

I'm home. Bridget was waiting at the airport. There's no better way to come home.


Thanks to all of you who took this journey with me via the blog.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

20. Looking Back While Thinking Ahead

Tuesday, July 3
Late Afternoon

I spent the morning exactly as I should on my last full day here: walking and taking up positions at favorites places. These included the Loggia, the Ponte Vecchio and the front steps of Santa Maria dell' Fiore. It is hot today, but not as oppressively so as it has been the last several. I still looked for shade, but now it actually gave some relief.

Around 1:00, Bruce called to figure out lunch. As it turned out, he's staying on the Via di Giglio, a street I have some acquaintance with. I walked over and met him at La Madia, a nice, homey little trattoria. A few minutes later, we were joined by two colleagues, Ann Hemenway from Fiction and Adam Jones from Film &Video, as well as Lauren, an advisor who is here to help set up the Florence program at Scuola Lorenzo di Medici. Lunch was very good, which is to say that there was a minimum amount of shop talk and a maximum amount of wine. By the time it was done we all agreed to meet at the Loggia at 8:30 for drinks and gelato. This, then, will be the final night of this year's sojourn.

On the way back to my room I texted Bridget with the all important question of her T-shirt size. I spotted one yesterday that I know she would like, but didn't want to get it in the wrong size. She said that she wears a medium, but to get a small if I like it tight. Needless to say, I got a small.

Beyond this, it really is the time to start processing this year's journey.

If any one word can sum up this trip it is "incursion." Incursions come in good and bad flavors like sweet and sour sensations on either side of a gelato cone. In truth, I've never had one of these sojourns where my life back home has so often interrupted my life here.

In keeping with the Mayan definition of 2012, there were a number of finalities that reached across the Atlantic to touch this journey. One friend lost his father while another is preparing to put his into palliative care. Having just been through the loss of my own father, and of the importance with which I hold both of these friends in my heart, I have felt what has been going on in their lives in a very personal way.

Of course the greatest loss to me, though, was my beloved cousin Eileen. As we got older, we found a bond in our mutual love of Tuscany. I visited her at her home in Casetta in 2005 and since that time had maintained with her a loving conversation about this country and its importance to us both. It was hard enough to hear the news of her death, but doubly hard to hear it while I was here. It made both the loss and missing her that much more acute and I know that I'm still not quite over it.

These incursions, though, were counterbalanced by one that was even more personal and profound. When Bridget arrived, it was more than a breath of fresh air. Coming as it did two days after I heard about Eileen, it was restorative. But it quickly became more than that. Since practically the day we met, Bridget and I have never denied either to ourselves or to each other the enormous importance that we have in each other's lives. When we finally got together last summer, there was a comforting meshing of gears, as though we both knew that this was the way that it was supposed to be. We have never been shy about expressing our feelings to each other and we have always had the gift of demonstrating them in ways that the other one understood and needed.

But something happened on this trip. Without trying to control it or intellectualize it out of existence, we relaxed into a far deeper level of intimacy than we had found before. This took us both by delighted surprise because before this trip we thought we were already there. Whatever final synchronization needed to take place happened in Mascali, Sicily, in a second-floor walk-up in the shadow of a basilica whose constantly tolling bells heralded the great change we were experiencing. That this happened in the shadow of Mt. Etna, the same place where it occurs for Ray and Nina in the script, created a precious circularity of which we are both aware. There is really no other way to describe our time in Sicily and Capri without resorting to the hoariest of clichés: They were the happiest days of my life.

From this vantage point, it is easy to see this trip as being divided into three parts - Prologue to Bridget, Bridget, and Epilogue to Bridget. At the same time, such an assessment refuses to give credit to the singular and solitary joys of the time that I've had here without her.

Before her arrival, I was able to once again get my feet on the ground in my favorite city in the world: Florence. I always try to begin and end in this city for a very simple reason. There is no place that I have ever been that inflames my imagination the way that this treasure on the Arno does. From the moment I enter Florence to the moment I leave, I am in a constant state of excited discovery. This is never more clearly displayed than in the photographs I take there. After my first visit in 2005, I showed my pictures of Italy, Germany, Greece and Austria to my friends Martin and Eileen. At the end, Eileen made a comment I've never forgotten. She said, "It's obvious you loved the trip, but you were in love with Florence." This trip has been no different. When I look at the photos that I took in Florence I recognize that they are superior to all the others. The people are more vital, the lighting more striking, the commentary more precise. These can be credited to the subjects, of course, but it is my eye and my imagination that finds them and gets them at the right moment. And these are shaped by Florence in a way that no other place can do it.

After Florence, there were two great happenings. The first was spending a day on Isola del Giglio. The sight of the keeled cruise ship Costa Concordia is going to bring out all kinds of responses in anyone who is in its presence. Certainly awe, hopefully respect for the souls lost, and undoubtedly a wave of morbid curiosity. I had these, but more than anything else, what I responded to was the surreal incongruity of it.

Giglio is a beautiful and quaint tourist town. It has the same kiosks and bodegas that are to be found in any other place that bases its economy on outside dollars. Although the accident happened a few short months ago, normalcy appears to have returned. None of the locals seem to give ship the slightest notice, despite the fact that it is almost literally close enough to touch. People sunbathe on the beach and only seem to note the existence of the Costa Concordia when the sun is low enough to cast a shadow. When this happens, they simply move their blankets and go back to the business of catching rays. People drink their coffee, buy their souvenirs and lounge on the boardwalk as though there isn't a ship the size of the Titanic lying on its side a stone's throw away.

The second great pre-Bridget happening for me was the discovery of Orvieto. As frequently happens, I make my best discoveries when I make no plans. I had several days to kill before I had to be in Rome. Orvieto was on the way and, since I'd already been to the other points on the triangle, Montepulciano and Cortona, it seemed like a logical place to go. In all honesty, I didn't even know it was a mountain town until the train approached it. What I found was a beautiful haven, a lovely place to spend a few days. Some of its charms are of the obvious kind - a spectacular duomo, beautiful smaller churches, excellent if quirky museums - but it was the less obvious ones that made me fall in love with the place: the Teatro Mancinelli with its color schemes more theatrical than anything that appears on its stage; the extraordinary mountaintop view so expansive that I could see a valley bathed in sunlight then turn my head to see a storm pummeling a mountainside, and; a tour of the caves that underpin Orvieto and create a whole separate city.

The post-Bridget time brought another great discovery. I hadn't even begun to process where I would go after she went back to the states. It was an act of Herculean denial that kept me from even considering the subject until the night before she left. At that point I had to make some kind of a decision because we would be checking out of the hotel in a few hours. I would have to either commit to staying in Rome, or buy a train ticket to somewhere else. I chose Assisi on the spur of the moment and within less than ten minutes had committed myself by booking a hotel online. The next morning, when she bought her ticket to Fiumicino, I stood at the machine next to her and bought my ticket for Assisi on a train that would leave less than an hour after hers.

Like Orvieto, I did not know what I would discover until it was right in front of me. What I found was a beautiful mesa town with more churches than one can imagine, a fortress so quiet that only the shadowing German family got in the way of my feeling that the castle was solely my own, and a tourist town that was quiet and, for the most part, devoid tourists. Most important, though, I discovered my church. I make it a point to visit dozens of cathedrals, basilicas and chapels when I come to Europe and invariably one of them stands out from the rest. The Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli is my church for this trip. I couldn't have been happier that my charming and off-the-beaten-path hotel, the Vignola, was only two blocks away. It meant that I was able to visit it as many times a day as I wanted.

Most of the times when I come to Europe, I'm in a constant state of movement. This means that most of the people I speak to or at least see are quick hits - relationships that are memorable because they are initiated, consummated and finished within a matter of minutes, sometimes seconds. These are the cab drivers and waiters, tourists and officials who appear briefly, do or say something memorable, then disappear back into their own lives never to intersect with mine again. This trip, though, had a number of meetings and run-ins that while maybe not profound were at least more than fleeting. This was a time when I made new friends like Giovanni the manic networker and Davide with whom I had a thoroughly delightful evening in Rome. There was also time to deepen some newer friendships. I got to spend a lovely afternoon sipping cappuccino with Sara and Caroline in Assisi, spent time in Florence with colleagues Bruce, Ann, Lauren and Adam, had a spectacular five-hour non-stop conversation with Jean O'Sullivan in the Borghese Gardens, and an even more engaged day-and-a-half with Gia and Beppe at their beautiful home in the very familiar town of Montevarchi.

The hit-and-runs were, of course, as much fun as they always are. Among my favorites on this trip:

An officious German guard at the Munich Airport who tried backing me down an escalator simply because I didn't read the signs the way she wanted me to;
A Florentine cab driver who looked suspiciously like Roberto Benigni who couldn't decide what was more important, his fare or the blonde on the Vespa;
Two overweight American women in Orbetello who were probably not even aware that they were singing and dancing to Beatles music while the rest of us were eating breakfast;
A little old Italian man who decided that his (much-appreciated) act of kindness for the day would be to lead a tired American through the streets of Orvieto to his hotel;
The clerk at that same hotel who did everything in her power to convince me not to use the hotel's laundry service;
The tall, gaunt clerk at Complesso di Sant' Agostino who first plied me with maps that he admitted were useless then put on atmospheric music only to turn it off as I was leaving;
Ariston, the over-caffeinated and long haired guide through the caves under Orbetello;
A harried car rental agent in Messina who was far more interested in where he had to be for a party later that night than he was in my needs as a customer;
Mandy, the initially suspicious but ultimately talkative, helpful and thoroughly delightful chubby British woman who is the concierge of the Hotel Vignola;
Her affectionate red-haired spaniel, a bitch named Snoopy only because it was given that name before they discovered that he was a she;
The young Chinese woman demanding that everyone take her picture in front of monuments she was far too crazed to enjoy or even notice;
The Polish woman whose confusion over the lavanderia system nearly drove her into a mortal depression;
The Chinese Second Wave who allowed me the chance to share what I had learned, and who were thankful for the information gleaned;
The very pretty concierge at La Scaletta who always remembers me and greets me in a way that helps me feel as though I have just come home.
Most of all, I remember the German Couple, the lovely twosome I kept running into in both Orbetello and Porto Ercole. We couldn't speak each other's language yet we still delighted in our constant collisions. A day hasn't passed since then that I haven't consciously looked for them in out of the way places, always convinced that I would see them one more time.

These people were all part of the colors of this particular trip. The colors, though, extend past the momentary pleasures of people to the fleeting events that marked each day. Even at this remove, the very best of them have Bridget beside me. Going to mass in Mascali then spending the rest of the day on the beach. Watching her walk down a long shaded street in Caltanisetta that my grandfather must undoubtedly have known. Dinners on the back deck and on a mountaintop in Capri. Lying side by side on the chaise lounges while I read Patti Smith and she read "Fifty Shades of Gray." Looking past the second bedroom and onto the deck where she was doing her morning yoga practice. Watching her sunbathe in her stars and stripes bikini on a Caprese rock. Spending whole days in bed with her talking about our future and where we want to go together. Just being in Italy with her. Finally.

Yes, there were many wonderful moments throughout this journey and even a few harrowing ones (may I never drive in this country again!), but in the long run, this was the trip in which the sweetest incursion of all, Bridget, came to stay. That makes it perfect.

Monday, July 2, 2012

19. Home Again (No, The Other One)

Monday, July 2
Late Morning
On the train from Assisi to Florence

It's been a very good morning. Right now the train is pulling out of Bastia and I'm getting my last look at Assisi, up on the hill and several miles back.

I checked out of the Vignola, but asked Mandy, the concierge, if I could leave my bags for awhile. I could have caught the 9:39 to Firenze SMN but decided to take the 11:17 so that I could make a last visit to Santa Maria degli Angeli. It was bright and quite warm so the cool of the Basilica was welcomed wholeheartedly.

As soon as I entered the nave I could hear singing. There was a large pack of cub scouts marching down the aisle but the music wasn't coming from them. It was coming from the Porziuncola. Mass was being said in the church-within-a-church. About fifty worshippers were crowded inside, all huddled together and nearly sliding down each other when genuflecting was required. I got there in time for the Eucharist and watched as the crowd seemed to undulate as each made room for the other to move forward and receive the host.

I watched for about ten minutes then followed the signs to the Rose Garden. On the way, at one corner, there is a statue of St. Francis. In his outstretched hands is a bird's nest and in that nest a dove. A live dove. Unfettered by the sight of us, he sat there calmly biding his time.

The Rose Garden can be viewed but not entered. Next to it, though, is another one of the original Francis sites on which the church is built. In this case, it is a cell where he had spent time. In order to see into it you must get down on the floor and peer through a small window. In this dungeon is a statue of Francis praying to a crucifix that lies on the floor.

I took one last long walk through the church then sat outside until 10:20. At that point, it was necessary to go. And I wouldn't have gone if it wasn't. I went back to the hotel, had a final conversation with Mandy then got the taxi to the train station. In true Italian fashion, the driver was the brother of the one who took me to the hotel four days ago.

A few final thoughts on Assisi. Having had no idea of what to expect it would have been easy to be pleased with what I would find. It would also have been just as easy to be disappointed. That I loved it as much as I did is probably some kind of testament to my basic optimism. And love it I did. The ancient city is breathtaking and quiet in a way that I would never have expected. Oddly enough, though, it wasn't what made the visit for me. The two strongest memories that I will take away are of Santa Maria degli Angeli which is well outside the ancient city, and the stay at the Hotel Vignola. While the hotel is a perfectly nice little pensione on a quiet street, it is distinguished by something that I'm no longer used to finding in inexpensive hotels: A friendly atmosphere. Between Mandy's desire to be helpful, her willingness to get into a conversation, and Snoopy's enjoyment in being petted incessantly, there was an almost familial feeling about the place. I honestly hated saying goodbye this morning. To use the Italian expression, all was piacere - pleasant.


Early Afternoon
Florence

The train ride was one of the better ones of this trip. Although the air conditioning was of course not working, the windows on this train opened and stayed open. The breeze was great and we were on a beautiful route that went past Perugia, Lake Trasimeno, Cortona and Terontola.

Getting from Firenze SMN proved to be a little trickier than normal. I took one look at the half-block long line for cabs and decided that the bus was a much better option in spite of a bad back and big bag. In order to do this, I had to cross the street, go to the tourist information booth to find out which bus I had to take then go back to the station to get a biglietti. As I was about to enter the station to do this I saw my bus sitting there. Unfortunately, the man in front of me at the news stand couldn't find the right change. His discovery process took so long that I missed my bus. The next one didn't come for ten minutes. Trust me, in this heat, that's a long time.

When I finally did get to the La Scaletta I was greeted as I was last time. The pretty concierge broke not a big smile and said with mock disappointment, "Mr. Falzone! Not again!" She asked for my passport then apologized for not having the number memorized. When she handed me the paperwork and the key she said, "I'm not going to tell you what to do. You already know. You should be working here."

It's nice to be home.

She gave me the same room as last time (my third time in it). As soon as I threw my suitcase in the corner I called our department chair Bruce Sheridan. He's teaching in town this summer and wants to get together for dinner this evening. I'm pretty sure this will include other teachers in the program, many of whom I already know. If so, there will probably be a lot of shop talk. Sigh.


Late Evening

I went out for a walk and did a little shopping for Bridget along the way. It's ridiculous how much I like doing that, even when it's just for little things. And I know exactly how dorky that sounds. Tough.

Somehow - and not at all surprisingly - the walk ended up at the Loggia of the Uffizi. Taking up my favorite spot, I sat for about an hour and shot the occasional tourist. It is a very hot day. Not as bad as yesterday, but still stifling enough so that lots of water and the occasional granita was necessary to make it through. Today, the Loggia Police, a group of worried little old men who are hired to maintain decorum, we're out in force. They worry, for example, if you're sitting on a bench but lean against the pedestal of one of the statues. Why this would hurt a couple of tons of solid marble is anyone's guess. In any event, I got warned for this infraction.

Afterward I went back to the hotel and made a call to Bridget who was then driving to Fort Worth to work on a client. Just as we hung up the phone, Bruce called to say that he was going to be stuck in meetings for awhile. Since the back brace has been giving me a bad stomach (if it ain't one side, it's the other) I willingly postponed until lunch tomorrow.

Bad stomach or not, I needed dinner and decided to go around the corner to 4 Leoni, a very nice place where I had dinner last year with Gary and Linda. I was hoping for their carciofi appetizer but they were operating off a new menu and this was no longer offered. No matter. The food was good, even if they were clearly unsure of how to handle a single looking for a table.

My original thought was to head back to my room after dinner and go to bed. In truth, this is an idiotic notion where this city is concerned. My feet just started walking and before I knew it I was sitting on the steps of Santa Maria dell' Fiore. The hot day has turned into a cool night and the streets are alive with musicians, dancers, jugglers, you name it. One of the many reasons I love this city so much is that it remains as alive at midnight as it does at noon. Other cities are louder at night (in fact, most other Italian cities are louder at night), but none has the vitality of Florence. It manages to be big and alive yet strangely intimate no matter what time of day it is experienced.

Oh God, I can already tell it will be brutal saying goodbye to it on Wednesday. It always is.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

18. The Chinese Second Front

Sunday, July 1
Evening

I managed to sleep through the night in spite of the back problems. By the time I got up, some of the stiffness had gone away, but it was far from perfect. I decided to be on the safe side and cancel my plans to go to Perugia for lunch with Sara and Caroline. At the same time, I knew it would be good to get out and walk.

I went up for breakfast on the terrace where I ran into the concierge. "You wouldn't know where I could buy a back brace around here?" I asked.

She thought about this a second.

"Well, love," she said, "I don't think they'd have one at the supermercato. Now you can get one at a farmacia, but you really want to go with the Chinese on this."

Chinese?

She slapped her side.

"I'm wearing mine right now. Awful back problems myself. You can pay a lot at the farmacia, or you can find a Chinese shop. The one they have won't be as good, but it'll be cheaper and it'll get you through a couple days at least."

Normally I would go for the good stuff, but I'll only be in Italy for three more days and I have a good one at home.

"Where can I find a Chinese shop around here?"

She thought about this a moment.

"I don't really know, but they're all over the place. Maybe there's one by the church."

She peered down the street as though looking for one.

"I'll tell you what you do," she said. "You just go into any shop down there and tell them you're looking for a 'negozzi Cinese.' They'll know where they are."

This was pretty vague, but I needed the walk anyway. If worse came to worse, I would find a farmacia and they would have one.

I went down to my room to get my camera before taking off on my walk. Before leaving, I checked my email. There was one from Bruce asking me if I wanted to stay in his second bedroom in Florence. Although it was already inside 72 hour cancellation limit at La Scaletta, I thought that I could pay the one night penalty and save on the second night. I was about to do this when I got a second email from Bruce. He wanted to warn me that his flat is a fourth floor walk-up. Given my back and the size of my suitcase, I decided to stick with the La Scaletta option.

I walked down toward Santa Maria degli Angeli. My back was handling it OK, except for those times when I would hit a sudden dip for a driveway or an unexpected curb. Then it felt like a pile driver on my lower back. When I got to the shopping area I started to look for anything vaguely Chinese. Nothing. I did, though, find a farmacia and decided that expense was the better part of valor. I went in.

I could see that the small shop was well stocked so I had a glimmer of hope.

"Parla Inglese?" I asked the clerk.

The man just shook his bald head.

Great. How the hell do you ask for a back brace when you don't know the words? I pointed to my back and mimicked pain. He smiled, nodded his head reached behind to grab a pack of some kind of back pills.

"Non, non," I said. I mimed wrapping a belt around my middle and standing straight. He looked at me quizzically then suddenly lit up.

"Si, si," he said then repeated this over and over again as he searched for what I was looking for. He found a solid looking elastic brace for 19 Euros. Actually, the roughly $24 USD that it would cost is a lot less than I'm used to paying for such things. I bought it.

Before heading back, I wanted to sit on the steps at Santa Maria for a while. If yesterday was a melange of tour groups, today, Sunday, was a plethora of monks and nuns. Once mass started I was tempted to go in. It passed when I imagined doing all the "stand up/sit down" a Catholic mass requires. Just the thought of it sent me home to put on my brace.

Relief - at least relative relief - came as soon as I fitted the brace tightly around my waist. I wanted to take it easy so spent the next several hours writing. About 2:30, I got the sudden urge to go out, jump on the bus, and head back toward the ancient city. It would be nice to get in a last walk before leaving in the morning, and it would be good for my back.

I was not prepared for how much the temperature had spiked in the few hours that I had spent in my room. Suddenly, it was around 100 degrees and the direct sunlight was brutally hot on my black-clad shoulders. I stopped to buy some water then went back toward the church to catch the bus. Since I had no idea when the next bus would come, I figured I could always wait in the Basilica where it would be much cooler.

As it turned out, I did not need to put this plan into effect. When I checked the schedule at the stop I saw that my timing was very good. The bus was there in about three minutes.

When the bus stopped at the train station, five Chinese tourists of varying age got on. One, a woman in her thirties, sat next to me. They conversed in Mandarin for a while. As we were passing under the Basilica di San Francesco the one seated next to me turned.

"Is that where we should be getting off," she asked in pitch perfect English.

"That depends on where you're going," I replied.

She told me that they didn't have specific plans, but that looked like it might be a good place to start.

"No," I said. "That would be the worst place to start." Remembering the advice the concierge gave me about starting at the top so you would always be headed downhill, I told her about getting off at Piazza Matteotti then told her which signs would be best to follow to get her and her cohorts to San Francesco. I also made sure to tell her how to get to Piazza Giovanni Paolo II from the Basilica since this was the stop for the C Line, the one they would need to get back to where they came from.

The woman was very pleased with this advice then turned and told her cohorts.

A few minutes later I got off the bus. I saw them start to get up. No, I told them, this wasn't Matteotti. They needed to stay on for one more stop. Again she thanked me.

I got off at Largo Properzio, one of the porta in the city wall. At first I thought I would have to climb to get to the city, but some developer had the presence of mind to put in escalators. Nothing could have been more of a godsend on this hot day.

I had no plan. I just wanted to stroll through streets that had gained a certain familiarity in the past few days. As usual, I decided to sit in the Piazza di Comune and just let my mind (and camera) wander for around a half hour. I got up and started walking toward the road that leads to San Francesco when I suddenly heard several high-pitched voices squeal things like "Hello!" and "It's him!" I looked to the source and there were four of the Chinese tourists from the bus, all now speaking perfectly good English. They were posing for a picture in front of the Temple of Minerva. The photographer was the woman who had been seated next to me.

"So glad to see you," she said. "Your advice...I think would be all dead without it!"

I told her that I was glad to help and asked her if they were enjoying the city so far.

"Very much," she said, "but San Chiara is too crowded."

I thought this was odd since it was very quiet when I went in the other day. I told her this.

"Oh, we didn't go in!" The tone in her voice made it sound like going in would be breaking the law. What she meant was that the piazza in front was too crowded to take a good picture. She then asked if I wanted her to take a picture of me in front of the temple with my camera. I thanked her, but said no. She shrugged and said goodbye. I could see that she and her group were starting to leave. Almost involuntarily, I shouted "Wait!"

They stopped and I went over to them.

"You really need to go inside the Temple of Minerva," I said, shoving my thumb in the direction of the Roman edifice. They looked at each other somewhat confused. "Really, I said, "it's amazing inside."

They turned to the woman I had been talking to and conferred, now back in Mandarin.

"Go in," I said. "You'll love it."

I could see them suddenly throw caution to the winds. They headed for the temple. The woman came back to me. "Thank you," she said. "And where are we to catch the bus again?"

I gave her instructions on how to get from San Francesco to the Piazza Giovanni Paolo II. As she was turning toward the temple she called over her shoulder, "Maybe we see you on the bus."

Sadly, we did not. On the other hand, maybe we weren't on the same bus because they finally decided it was all right to go inside the churches. After yesterday's crazed Chinese woman with a camera, I felt like I was able to do a good deed by getting this group to stop and smell the antiquity.

That's not a bad way to say goodbye to the home of St. Francis.