Category: Travel

Budapest or bust

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

And so, just back from Scotland — beautiful, bracing, beer-soaked and brogue-y — I do what I always do when I return from a hearty journey: immediately plan the next one, high on the fumes of the one just completed. Travel intoxication: a hazard of the unquenchable wanderer. 

Friends obligatorily ask: “How was it?” 

And I fan away the question with this impertinent question: “Where to now?” 

My quasi-ADD manifests as a cockeyed restlessness that makes me want to pack my suitcase about six times a day, even if I’m not going anywhere for months. I consider what mini toothpaste I should take, how many extra razors, what and how many pairs of socks I’ll need. I’m certifiable, but goddam I’m efficient. 

When it comes time to actually pack for a weeklong trip, I can do it in 30 seconds flat. (I’m like Robert De Niro in the movie “Heat,” and if you get that reference I’m sending you a Christmas card.) 

I’ve been spending an unhealthy amount of time eyeing my scuffed carry-on suitcase since I returned from Scotland. That’s because within two days of the return, I knew where I was going this fall, something I figured out with a kind of crazed alacrity.

First I narrowed it down to places I haven’t been to. That list is endless, sorrily. Then I did some math ($$) and realized it would have to be some time down the line, and not excessively exotic.

And so, a place I’ve never been but have almost gone to: Budapest. Which I figure is good for four days. To fill a week, I chose a second Eastern Bloc location, Krakow, the medieval Polish city that knocked me out so many years ago. Late October is the date, Eastern Europe is the place, borscht and pierogis are the plates.

Like so much of the world, a historical shadow, a practical pall, hangs over Hungary and Poland. So there will be much about soul-crushing Communism, the collective Jewish plight, the Holocaust — Auschwitz-Birkenau is just outside of Krakow (I’ve been, and I’m going back) — not to mention the abhorrent  intolerances harbored by the current leaders of both nations, which echo America’s far-right reprobates. Travel is exploration and edification. I’ll provide a full report on any evident ugliness.

As far as mapping my journey, I’m (surprise, ha) frenzied. I have a bulging itinerary with wriggle room for spontaneity. Flights are booked, restaurants reserved, tours scheduled, free time sketched out, etc. 

Four months out and my brain is abuzz. So much so that I’m already scoping the trip after this for sometime in February. (I won’t tell you, but I’ll give you a hint: It’s near Italy and it starts with Sicily.)

Budapest

Scotland: heat, history and, yes, haggis

~ Chris ~ 3 Comments

It was 65 degrees F and the Scots were on fire. Summer’s here, the locals kept blissfully declaring, as they peeled off jackets and dabbed beading brows and dipped into pubs for emergency pints, as if they were dangerously parched from the sizzling rays of a vengeful sun.

This was comical to me, who was strolling about in long sleeves and a quilted black jacket and feeling just right in the rare Scottish weather event called “sunshine.” A cool breeze mussed your hair and creeping cloud cover furnished a periodic chill. 

Not so for the delightful natives I encountered in Edinburgh and Glasgow last week, where miles of pale flesh — as pasty and pink as a baby’s — almost required Ray-Bans.

Edinburgh

Part of why I went to Scotland for my biannual travels was for the cooler late-spring weather (it’s going to be 90 in my parts this week — disgusting). And so watching the denizens get in a happy lather when temps broke the 60s amused me a bit (a “wee bit,” to borrow the local vocabulary).

Scotland was a lovely surprise (“lovely” being another highly trafficked descriptive). Why Scotland?, even the locals asked me. Dunno. Been around the world a couple times, looking for someplace new — and climatically cool — and my research convinced me it holds sights and treasures and, yes, food, worth checking out. 

Food? That’s the big punchline with Scotland. I’ve written about it here before, and when I texted a friend I was there, she wrote back sarcastically, “Enjoy the great food” with a dubious emoji. 

But first, the big national rivalry: Edinburgh vs. Glasgow. Who wins? No brainer. Glasgow can use the excuse that Edinburgh is too touristy. But there’s a reason for that: It kills Glasgow, a big, homely city with a few historical sights and other feeble points of interest (hey, here’s a university and over there’s a giant mural).

Meanwhile, Edinburgh is encrusted in history, flush with medieval flavor, cobblestone, and an attractive village vibe, especially as the country’s capital. The ancient Castle is there, sure, but the city’s overriding character stomps the generic urban tang of Glasgow. Yeah, I said it.

Royal Mile, Edinburgh

Scottish pub culture is familiar to all of the UK, and much of its food is delicious. But dig deeper, beyond the burgers, fish and chips, Eggs Benedict and bangers and mash, and a quality bounty awaits. Like Cullen skink, a thick, fantastically savory soup of cream, smoked haddock, onions and hearty potato chunks that I had at a pub before (one of many) whisky tastings. 

Here’s some of the rest:

Scottish Eggs: eggs wrapped in sausage, breaded and fried
Lamb shank atop mashed potatoes in wine and onion gravy
Potatoes, with haggis on the right (sheep & beef guts with oats — fantastic)
Hake fish with potatoes and baby asparagus
Fresh peas and scallops
Cod wrapped in pork, with poached egg at right

And for dessert:

The charming, super-historic Grassmarket, where I stayed in Edinburgh

And, of course, a fragrant flight of whisky at one of several mandatory tastings:

To that last one I say, Slàinte Mhath!, or Slanj-a-va, meaning ‘cheers’ in Scottish.

Scottish cuisine — really?

~ Chris ~ 6 Comments

So I was walking around the hood recently and I spotted a squirrel in the road squished like a jelly donut. It was gruesome and sad and got me thinking about mortality, careless drivers, blameless rodents and, yes, Italian food. 

I envisioned the shockingly good meals I ate last year in Rome and Naples: pizza margherita, caprese salad, pasta carbonara, ravioli, gelato, etc. And that led to thoughts about the kinds of food I might eat on my upcoming journey to Scotland. 

This was tricky, because I don’t really know what native Scottish fare is, except for the shuddering national dish haggis, dubiously defined as “a pudding composed of the liver, heart and lungs of a sheep, mixed with beef or mutton kidneys and oatmeal and seasoned with spices, which is packed into a sheep’s stomach and boiled.” 

Suddenly, I see that pulverized squirrel.

This is a job for some A.I., I mused, too lazy to grab my Scotland guide books. So I asked ChatGPT to spit up some famous Scottish dishes and it gave me haggis (#1), smoked salmon, porridge (!), black pudding (sausage made with pig’s blood) and other grub that doesn’t sound wildly appetizing on paper, but rather Dickensian.

That said, I’ve made reservations at seven restaurants in Edinburgh and Glasgow that seem delicious, and almost all of them boast Scottish cuisine (the exception is an Indian joint that looks otherworldly). I’m particularly amped about Makars Gourmet Mash Bar in Edinburgh, which merrily touts affordable farm-to-table dishes featuring lots of mashed potatoes and scads of fresh meats and veggies. Bangers and mash? Um, yeah. 

I was watching “Top Chef” the other night and the show’s deceptively sweet host Padma Lakshmi — she of the cutting parting words, “Please, pack your knives and go” — reminded me how food is of paramount consideration when choosing where to travel. I go partly for the local cuisine, be it sushi and takoyaki (octopus balls) in Japan or jamón ibérico and patatas bravas in Spain (or, gulp, haggis in Scotland).  

This trip is different. Despite my A.I. research, nothing but the cursed haggis stands out, and yet the menus at my reserved restaurants are thoroughly enticing. A quasi-foodie — sort of a Foodie, Jr. — I’m all about adventuresome eating, be it silkworm cocoons in China or that whole cobra in Vietnam I’ve mentioned here a thousand times. Will I try haggis? Maybe. Yet I don’t want to order an offal-filled sheep’s stomach only to gag on the first bite and then where will I be? Embarrassed and out 20 bucks. 

I rarely strike out in my gastronomical exploits — OK, the silkworm cocoons were disgusting — so anxiety is low. I bet I can do haggis. Right? After all, it really isn’t like it’s roadkill or something. 

Damn. That poor, pitiful little squirrel. 

Haggis. There you have it.

The reluctant bachelor

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

In my 30s, a pair of well-meaning coworkers nominated me for a title in a big-city glossy magazine that makes me blush even as I type this so many years later. 

The magazine was a strenuously vapid thing, slathered in food and lifestyle pap, all of it mawkishly upbeat. To attract page after Technicolor page of blaring ad copy, it was shamelessly obsessed with ratings and lists: Best Barbecue! Best Campsites! Best Burgers! Best Places to Get Off!

City magazines with ample ad revenue are like that. They traffic in pretty pictures of manicured affluence, catering to the beauty-salon and doctor’s office crowds. Without being trendy themselves — they are woefully unhip —  they try to manufacture trends. Only dingbats actually pay money for the periodical, which is so cloying, you could barf. 

That said, I admit up front that I participated in this paragon of sub-journalism. My coworkers nominated me for one of those knuckleheaded lists: the city’s Most Eligible Bachelors. I was flattered. I was humbled. I was mortified.

The magazine editor phoned me for a preliminary interview. And I blurted: no. I rejected the nomination. It was way out of my comfort zone. I wasn’t so desperate for a date. And this introvert definitely didn’t need the exposure, my bewildered mug spread next to an ad for the hottest tanning salon or 40 sparkly, smiley real estate agents.

I thanked my deflated pod-mates, the lovely Sarah and Sharon, and also apologized. I was being ungracious, but I didn’t have the stomach for it. 

My dis was apparently a big deal. Friends expressed dismay. My disappointed mother scolded me like I was eight. The topper: Ira Glass of “This American Life” called for a possible segment — man turns down most eligible bachelor nomination, how zany is that? — that, fortunately, never panned out. 

And yet, I’m only human.  

Forward a year: Same routine, but this time, for better or worse, I caved. I did it. I’m not sure why. I was strafed by anxiety. But I thought, what the hell, man up. 

During the in-office interview with the editor, I explained my job (movie critic, which I said wasn’t nearly as glamorous as it’s cracked up to be), noted my hobbies (world travel, books, film, drinks, drums), and things I’m not so crazy about (dancing, reggae). Asked the inevitable question of what I look for in a woman (sigh), I said something like someone bookish, worldly and intellectually curious (what a dope).

This is the story of someone quite bashful scraping himself out of his dark, lonesome shell. A comment the editor solicited for the article from one of my dearest friends, Courtney, included these bits: “His eccentricities are very endearing … Once he lets you in, you discover a kind-hearted soul.”

Yeah. That might be a bit much. But there I was in this glossy magazine with nine other “most eligible bachelors,” practically shaking in my boots with self-consciousness. Each of us filled a full color page, with no ads. In the photo, my head is enormous.

The issue hit the stands (and the beauty salons and doctors’ offices) and I braced for the worst. But instead: crickets. No one called, emailed, berated me, ridiculed me, asked me on a date, nothing. Disappointment? No, massive relief. 

I guess the moral of this tale is to get out of your self-defined — and in my case, distinctly neurotic — safe zones and take a chance on something new, even alien. I ate a whole cobra in Vietnam and got detained by Hezbollah in Beirut. A cheesy little spread in a city magazine is comparably nothing. Really. Nothing.  

Take a risk. It might be gut-wrenching. It might be exhilarating. Or it might be … crickets. 

Kilt me now

~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

I’m trying, I really am. 

I’m trying to get super excited about Scotland, much as I tried a year ago to get jazzed about Ireland. 

We know how that turned out: I bought a flight to Dublin only to exchange it a week later for a flight to Paris. It was after I studied the destination with a flea comb, burrowed into my research, only to arrive at the great existential query: What am I thinking? (I ask this frequently in my life.)

I’m sure Ireland is splendid, despite the fact that pubs, pubs and pubs are invariably named the top experience in everything I read. A friend just returned from Dublin and said it’s terrific — for two or three days. Then you run out of things to do. At that point, of course, you rent a car for the verdant countryside and … yawn, you lost me. 

I’m an urban traveler. I seek culture, cuisine, cobblestone. Art, edifices, bustling humanity and idiosyncratic neighborhoods. I also seek cool climates — I’m done sweltering in the tropics — for summer travel. Last July I went to Buenos Aires to, among many reasons, escape our heat. I slipped on my jacket each day with a big grin. 

And so, Scotland. I’m eyeing a May trip to the capital Edinburgh and Glasgow, the largest city in the country, both of which brim with museums, castles, street art, music (here is where I make peace with bagpipes), hearty food (do I dare try haggis?) and, a-ha, whisky. May weather hovers in the mid-50s and below and I’m already happily shivering.

Like Ireland, Scotland is comprised of highlands, lowlands, islands, cliffs, crags, rolling pastures and billowing grass. It’s lousy with forts and castles. It doesn’t look like I’ll get into all that, though I might be whisked away on a day trip. I probably should.

Maybe I’ll spot Nessie, the wondrous Loch Ness Monster, and hitch a ride on her mythical scaly back through the chill waters. (As a kid, I used to love Nessie, that bashful and elusive lake dinosaur. I thought she and Bigfoot should get married.)

I am a wee nervous about the language, specifically the knotty Scottish brogue, which contorts familiar English into musical pretzels and thick-tongued tootles that leave some of us wincing with incomprehension. I once worked with a native Scot named Alan Black and I couldn’t understand a damn word he said. We got along swimmingly, but I’m sure I missed 60 percent of what he was telling me. 

This worries me, the rogue brogue. I’ll be made the fool by cheery locals who will snicker at me between sips of lager and Glenfiddich, doing spit takes. I’ll be the dumb American carrying around an ear funnel, going, “What’s that, mate?”

I can do this. The more I excavate, the more Scotland attracts. I’m thinking seven days between the two cities, yet there’s more to explore. The trip could get longer, epic, out of control. It could go from a jaunt to a journey. I like that. (Cue: “Loch Lomond.”)

Am I sure about this?

Getting down with dinner, and keeping it down

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

Last year in Lisbon, Portugal, I was served a 12-course meal that stuffed me so brutally, I was this close to dashing to the restaurant bathroom and purging myself. I felt like an engorged zeppelin, about to burst with the sloshing goulash bloating my belly. I was in theatrical distress. 

And the food, which was amazing, kept coming. And coming. I finally had to hold up a hand when the server brought the final course, which was a square of baklava the size of a matchbox. That hand said, “Cease. Go back wherefrom you came. Take that morsel of food with you. Be gone before disaster strikes.” 

Still, he insisted on boxing up the dessert. I conceded. All the while an argument raged between my mind and my stomach. The mind won. By the grace of god, I did not vomit. 

I was reminded of this fine-dining discomfort the other night at an eatery that’s the opposite of the gourmet Portuguese blowout: La Tapatia, a homey, festively painted Mexican restaurant/cantina in Concord, Ca., some 30 minutes east of San Francisco. 

(My brother and I are in the East Bay clearing out my late Mom’s townhouse and putting it on the market. Wading through Everests of old photos is by turns amusing, exhausting, and wildly depressing.) 

We adore La Tapatia and anticipated its decadent cuisine before we left the East Coast. It’s a destination spot dishing up fiercely old-school Mexican food: chips and salsa, margaritas, rice and refried beans, tacos, burritos, the whole enchilada. 

With a tangy margarita, I had a chicken taco and chicken enchilada. The plate was massive, flooded in a sea of beans and rice: 

It was deliriously good. But here’s the thing: I got so gorged on chips and dinner, I spontaneously puked when I got back home. It was quick and painless, and I topped it with a gin and tonic. I’m disgusting. (A girlfriend once told me I have the “constitution of a bird.” I cannot argue with this.)

To offset the stress and gloom of this seven-day trip, we’ve turned it into a foodie foray, hitting many good places — we’re eating out twice a day, every day — as well as favorite restaurants we’ve long loved in the area.

Like the scrappy, frantic joint in San Francisco’s Chinatown. From the SF airport, we went straight to our reliable haunt House of Nanking, where I had the celebrated Nanking Sesame Chicken, a dish of cosmic savoriness:

I’ve mentioned before that I own a House of Nanking t-shirt. It’s that good. I learned that scenes from “The Matrix Resurrections” were filmed there. Photos of Keanu Reeves with the beaming owner paper the windows. For some reason, I’m proud.

Yesterday we met our old friend Tony for lunch at the classy, very bougie Acre Kitchen & Bar on College Avenue in Berkeley. Though the sardines, arriving with three tiny bottles of Tabasco, were wonderful, Tony was the highlight. He’s about the nicest guy you could know, a real mensch, radiating a gentle joy that inspires faith in the world. He ate a French dip and took a selfie of us.

Sardines and Tabasco. Tony didn’t have any.

In Berkeley, where my brother went to Cal, we kicked around used book and record stores, working up an appetite for an early dinner at Alice Waters’ legendary restaurant Chez Panisse. Considering this could be our final trip to the Bay Area, we splurged on the crazy-expensive four-course dinner menu, which changes daily, and it went like this: 

California white sea bass tartare with Meyer lemon, ginger, and fried capers

Wild mushroom ravioli in brodo with Parmesan

Corvus Farm guinea hen roasted in the hearth; with potato-rutabaga purée, spring onions, and spinach

Hazelnut sherbet and chocolate ice cream meringata

Guinea hen roasted in the hearth.

Pretentious? Nuh-uh. Chez Panisse keeps it real with a humble farm-to-table ethos that’s exquisitely prepped and presented. Service is impeccable, always with a smiling expansiveness, never fussy, and often with a quip or two. The food: spectacular without being show-offy. It’s special but to the point.

I don’t think I’m overselling the experience, because we went back two nights later  (after scrambling for a coveted reservation) for the more modest à la carte menu, no less delicious and memorable. My appetizer was “sprouting broccoli roasted in the wood oven with preserved lemon and mint yogurt”; my main course was “grilled lamb leg with shoestring potatoes, glazed carrots, and red wine butter” — all of it superb, as expected.

Bonus: I didn’t throw up. 

The dog’s lifting his leg, but not for that reason

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

It always wrecks me to see an injured or afflicted animal, be it a stray dog scratching helplessly at mounds of scabby boils in Shanghai, a moped-stricken hound in Hanoi, or a baby hippo fatally gored by fighting adult hippos on the Serengeti. (I saw that one on TV in Florence last week. Thanks, Nat Geo.) 

Now Cubby the magical, mystical mutt may be ailing, and it’s distressing. The ridiculous animal is suddenly walking like Willy Wonka in the 1971 movie as the chocolatier emerges from his factory to greet the Golden Ticket holders, with a pronounced limp, one leg stiff and useless as a board.

Cubby’s back left leg is palsied and raised off the floor, bent. He’s walking around like one of those fashionable three-legged dogs that pop up in hip shows and movies. (See: Pamela Adlon’s “Better Things” or Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic.”)

I’m no vet, but I’ve gently pressed, pulled and squeezed Cubby’s leg and paw and there seems to be no pain. He’s emitted nary a whine and he looks at me like I’m some sort of touchy-feely perv-o. 

He still scampers up and down stairs, leaps onto sofas. Maybe he’s pulling a Wonka. (If you recall, Wonka was faking it, just so he could perform this tremendous somersault and show up everyone as credulous dupes. He was the best.)

I hope he’s faking it, the curly little wisenheimer (actually he’s part Schnauzer). See him in video action just last week HERE. It’s worth it. 

As you can see, Cubby’s no old man — the rescue pup is roughly seven — but he’s no Gen Z whippersnapper, either. (Though he does adore making spritely little dances on TikTok.) He’s middle-aged, with tufts of distinguished gray and the breath of a chain-smoker. 

But I fret. To watch a creature suffer causes me unshakable anguish. The sick and maimed street animals I’ve seen around the world haunt me many years later. I was even nervous when Cubby, still at the shelter, was neutered and had to wear one of those big cones on his head. He did it with tail-wagging courage and panting dignity.

And now this, the hobbling hound. We’re stumped. The dog will go to the vet if the mystery malady continues. Sometimes animals just want attention, and they can be quite wily at doing it. In the end, we just hope scruffy Cubs has been pulling our leg.

Brave cone dog

Clearing out the museum of Mom

~ Chris ~ 2 Comments

Florence was a gas. I got back a few days ago and I’m still huffing the trip’s fragrant fumes and, I admit, getting a little high. It was an idyllic sojourn: the friendliest, prettiest people; piquant pizzas and pleasing piazzas; huge marble slabs of history; staggering art; so much gelato you could vomit. And dogs — a festival of dogs.

I’m leaving on a jet plane yet again in a week, but this one isn’t for vacation; it’s for vacating. My brother and I are going to the San Francisco Bay Area to clear out my late ole Mom’s condo and put it on the market. We are vacating the abode of its current renter and as much furniture and stuff as we can in a short stretch of time, about six days. It could be a herculean errand, or it might snap into place like Legos.

Mom passed in late 2019, so this isn’t really a mournful visit, though it is naturally tinged with blue-hued rue. Ghosts, memories, love and misses. We have to riffle through reams of photos — that’ll be fun and painful and snoringly tedious — and decide what things we want and what can hit the curb. My brother can’t wait to get his grubby hands on this damn metallic rabbit Mom placed next to the toilet. It’s probably spattered in urine.

Save for that weird rabbit, there’s nothing original about any of this. It’s just another life stage, a serial speed bump that most of us have to go through. My turn. Yawn. 

Yet we’re going to make the most of it, dammit, back in the Bay Area bosom we grew up in. From the San Francisco airport, we’re beelining it to our favorite restaurant in Chinatown, House of Nanking, a bustling joint we used to line-up for before they expanded a bit. I like their zesty food so much — especially the Nanking Sesame Chicken — and the surly, snappish owner, that I still wear one of their neon-bright t-shirts. 

Then it’s down to business. For a while. 

We’ve planned other sidelights to sustain our spirits and energy. Like a special dinner at chef /author Alice Waters’ legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley. This is quintessential farm-to-table California cuisine, which Waters practically invented. I’ve eaten there before. It’s spectacular, an institution. My brother, the foodie who’s been to them all, says it’s his favorite restaurant. We’re spoiling ourselves. We’ve also slated a day and dinner in Napa. Boo-hoo for us. 

Still, getting real, the trip won’t be fun; a few good meals can’t blot out the grim reality of the situation. Fortunately, Mom left a fastidiously tidy home, decorated with utmost taste and artistic flair. (We will be plundering her artwork and art books for sure.) She had class, and we want to honor that by doing this dirty work with a soupçon of respect.

We’re dismantling a life, in a way, dislodging and dispersing things that defined a real person. And we’re a part of it. My travel photographs adorn a wall. A painting my brother made of David Bowie adorns another wall. And so on. 

I think of the place as a museum of Mom — meticulous, magnificent —  carefully curated, painstakingly, and with inexpressible love. We have our work cut out for us. 

My big birthday wish list (aren’t I worth it?)

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

My birthday’s fast approaching. Here’s what you can get me (thanks!):

1. The hefty new book “Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears” by New Yorker staffer Michael Schulman. It sounds frivolous, and a lot of it surely is, but it also promises a chunky serving of cultural history about the loved and lambasted Academy Awards, dusted with tidbits, like the similarities between two of my all-time favorite movies, “All About Eve” and “Sunset Boulevard.” Reviews say it’s compulsively readable, if you’re into that stuff, and I am. The damn thing costs $40. 

2. Monkey 47 — A deliciously complicated and original gin that’s out of my price range by a good 30 dollars. I generally wait to get this bottle as a gift. So I say to you: Go for it!

3. A pair of Black Ghost sneakers from Italian brand Oliver Cabell. They run a gulping $270 (that’s with a $68-off promotion code). But these “fashion-forward” kicks are true beauts: top-notch black leather matched with clear rubber outsoles — not white, black or gum, but clear. They’ll probably rack me with flesh-shredding blisters, but what’s searing pain in the name of unspeakable hotness?

4. Dinner for two at four-star, impossible-to-get-into restaurant Le Bernardin in New York, where you can nosh an eight-course tasting menu with caviar and langoustines for a piddling $298 per person. I promise you a doggy bag. Maybe.

5. A round-trip ticket to Istanbul in the fall. Expensive, you say? Hey, economy class is just fine. I like pretzels.

6. Any ritzy anti-aging serum that’s not hawked by Gwyneth Paltrow or Jennifer Lopez, those obscenely compensated airbrushed quacks. I’ve got a couple of crow’s feet that are absolutely mocking me. 

7. I chose seven gifts because my birthday lands on April 7. It’s a neat number, and a lucky one, too. But it’s awfully small. So how about $700 in cash, please. Cool.

Best. Birthday. Ever!

Dying for our sins, and for Italian food

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Like many Catholic countries, Italy is crawling with crucifixes, and Florence, where I’ve been for four days so far, is inescapably swept up in the cross craze. The objects, often beautiful pieces of art, are bloody, baroque, humdrum and horrific — a whole cross-section. 

Jesus died on the cross and we know that wasn’t pleasant. Naked, nailed, speared, bleeding, suffocating … you get the picture.

I do too. But what I don’t get is the exuberant, even perverse glorification of Christ’s grisly death. I sort of understand the symbolic power of it all — God willed it — yet wonder why people wear one of history’s worst torture devices around their necks. (And I wonder why so many heavy metal bands are morbidly obsessed with them. Dude!)

Speaking of bodily torment, today I stumbled on the rabidly popular sandwich stand All’Antico Vinaio — the kind of place with lines out the door — where I had been hoping to go but had no idea where it was. Pure kismet. This was after I took in a sprawling and mind-altering M.C. Escher (he sounds like a Dutch rapper) exhibit at the Museum of the Innocents, whose name has guilt written all over it. I didn’t know Pink Floyd was so into Escher, but it makes almost comical sense.

I couldn’t read the big menu board at the sandwich place — Italian and all — but I finally settled on the Firenze for seven euros, or just over seven bucks. The baseball mitt-sized meal consists of six heart attacks worth of salami, creamed parmesan and sun-dried tomatoes, stuffed between thinly sliced focaccia. It was fantastic, popping with flavor, and totally unfinishable. The pigeons had a frenzied feast.

The night’s meal is typically the highlight of the day and must be meticulously researched. For dinner I went to an old-school trattoria — defined as an “Italian restaurant serving simple food” — that ratings aggregates go gaga for. Even Michelin backs this joint. It was fine, but mostly wound up being overrated by dint of its noble, been-there-forever history. The giant glass of house wine was a plus at a meager four euros. I maybe eat one or two steaks a year and I ordered a sirloin (Florence is famous for superior steaks) and a seven-euro salad that was actually a few floppy, naked leaves worth about 15 cents. 

The steak was solid, but it dawned on me: As yummy as they are, steaks are like pancakes — they get boring about half-way through. I was glad I didn’t get a true “Florentine” steak that so many diners got and chewed on for like an hour. Those meats are the size of the cut from the opening credits of “The Flintstones,” a slab so big it tips over Fred Flintstone’s car.

As far as Florentine greatest hits, the other day I visited the awesome 17-foot-tall marble nudist David, by Michelangelo. I didn’t mention it before, but here’s a peek (it’s almost obligatory, isn’t it?):