Ode to a Tourist in Italy • Wander Virtually

This is my first post, an ode to a real or a virtual tourist in Italy who may go into sensory overdrive upon arriving in the land of of gelato and Michelangelo!

Featured photo: Mystical view of the Tuscan countryside at dawn – Volterra, Italy.

In this poetic verse, I have some puzzles for you – and my blog stories will help you figure these puzzles! So read on and subscribe to my posts down below …..

Italy – No Itinerary Required

Through the landmarks of history, let me be your guide
To wander virtually, no itinerary required.

————— ♣ —————

In Italia no soil seems unspared from history
Nay the Dolomiti nor the beaches of Sicily.
Unrelenting events circa three millenia
On earth made ready by cremating Villanova.

Beware the confusion of the Greek pottery profusion
Sacks of Rome left no vellum for titillation, revelation.
But the walls tell witness, an Etruscan woman was no bitch
Emperors were scholarly – nay, poets and artists could be rich!

Amongst canvas or sandstone, the celebrated paints
Sinful cardinals, daddy popes, pagans who were saints.
Old gods roll over in their graves under refashioned edifices,
Was Saint Peter’s canopy made from Pantheon pieces?

Guardati, Da Porto, Bandello, Brooke and Shakespeare share
The credit that confounds tourists in Verona’s lovers’ square.
Cats and bats instead, but vampires none in ancient Volterra.
Dig deeper, the truth in parchment, marble, and tufa.

————— ♣ —————

Find stories of beauty, pride, honor, hubris and crime
In centuries of forgotten rocks and mantles of grime.